CHILDREN'S BOOKS PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM DARTON AND HIS SONS

A Catalogue of an Exhibition at the Lilly Library, Indiana
University, April-June 1992

By
Linda David

With a Historical Calendar by
Lawrence Darton

This catalogue was published with funds from the Wendell L. Willkie
Educational Trust administered by the Indiana University Foundation, with
additional funding from APT International, a supplemental grant from the George
and Frances Ball Foundation of Muncie, Indiana, and generous gifts from Design
Printing of Indianapolis, Indiana, and from two anonymous donors.

Editing and design by the Indiana University Office of Publications. Edited by
Sylvia Payne and designed by Garry Roadruck, with production assistance from
Diane Castellan. Photographs by Kevin Hutchison, courtesy of Media and Teaching
Resources. Typeset by Fine Light Inc, Bloomington, Indiana; the text is set in
Palatino. Printed by Design Printing, Indianapolis, Indiana. Paper used is 80
pound Mohawk Superfine Cover (White) and 80 pound Mohawk Superfine Text (White).
Seven hundred and fifty copies of this catalogue have been printed.

Cover design by Garry Roadruck based on Death and Burial of
Cock Robin. London: William Darton, Holborn Hill [ca. 1819].

ILLUSTRATIONS

A page number is given for each illustration, followed by the page number of the
illustrated item in parentheses. Illustrated items are indicated in the text by
an ornament [❧]. Color illustrations are placed at intervals within the
catalogue. Illustrations are shown actual size.

University of California at Los Angeles, Department of Special Collections

The generosity of Lawrence Darton, well-known among scholars working with rare
children's books, created many of my opportunities for learning about William
Darton and his sons. Those opportunities, in turn, helped to create our
friendship, and many a collaborative conversation. I cannot thank him and his
wife Elizabeth adequately. The completion of his definitive study of Darton
publishing will open doors onto a past that can only be glimpsed in this
exhibition. Ruth Adomeit allowed me to work in her splendid miniature
collection, and to hear some of the stories about its formation, on
unforgettable occasions. She is very much a presence in this exhibition.

For information and photocopies of Darton materials, I am grateful to Margaret
Crawford Maloney, James Davis, Mark Dimunation, and Joann Chasen, with very
special thanks to Pamela K. Harer. For loans of unpublished research materials,
I wish to thank Lawrence Darton, Sean Shesgreen, and Felix de Marez Oyens, who
kindly sent me two chapters from Be Merry & Wise: The Early Development
of English Children's Books, the forthcoming catalogue of the exhibition at the
Pierpont Morgan Library, written with Brian Alderson. For loans of books and
articles and for advice, I am indebted to many friends, especially Phyllis
Guskin, Mary Gaither, David Staines, Steven Davidson, Erlene Stetson, Mal
Zirker, Kenneth Johnston, Brian Powell, John Eakin, Sybil S. Eakin, Susan Gubar,
Anthony Shipps, Marion Gottfried, and Benjamin David.

I wish to thank Indiana University and the staff of the Lilly Library, with
special gratitude for the kindness of Erla P. Heyns, Sue Presnell, Rebecca Cape,
Joel Silver, and my friends at the Reading Room desk. Jim Canary, Kim Koons, and
Sandy Wassenmiller of the conservation department, with the help of Steve
Stroup, worked creatively to prepare the materials. I always count on Helen
Walsh to bring visitors into happy relation with an exhibition. I learned a lot
about the art of bookmaking from Sylvia Payne, Garry Roadruck, and Diane
Castellan of the Indiana University Office of Publications, Kevin Hutchison of
Media and Teaching Resources, and Mark Infalt of Design Printing of
Indianapolis, imaginative and generous people.

Diana Hawes and Barbara Halporn, past and present presidents of the Friends of
the Lilly Library, and loyal friends, have supported my projects over months and
years. Judy Gettelfinger, Karlene Huntley, Rob Fulk, Joan Zirker, Helen
Phillips, Paul Strohm, Leslie Foster, and Frank Anechiarico helped at critical
moments, and Al David, simply, made it possible. In the end, growing up in the
tiny southern Indiana village of Byrnville, which still retained so many of the
elements of the world of Little Truths Better Than Great Fables, was the best
preparation of all.

A HISTORICAL CALENDAR

By Lawrence Darton

Successive imprints of the firms are shown in brackets. Selected publications
written by William Darton the elder are marked with an asterisk (*).
Publications that may have been written by him, but that cannot be with
certainty ascribed to him, are marked with a dagger (†).

William Darton, Sr. (1755-1819) and the firm at Gracechurch Street

William Darton, Jr. (1781-1854) and the firm at Holborn Hill

1755

Born at Tottenham, near London,the son of John Darton, innkeeper.

1769

Apprenticed for seven years to Thomas Dent, engraver, of Ball Alley,
Lombard Street, City of London.

1774

His father accidentally drowned (place and circumstance unknown).

1775

Finished apprenticeship as engraver nine months before expiry of his
term, "his master being in fault." ca. 1775 Returned to
Tottenham, where he ran a general store or shop.

1777

Joined the Society of Friends.

1778

Married Hannah Pace, Quaker, of Spitalfields, London.

1781

William, eldest son of William Darton, Sr., born at Tottenham.

1787

[W. Darton and Co.] Set up as engraver, stationer, and printer in
White Lion Alley, Birchin Lane, City of London. From there published
Little Truths better than Great Fables *
and (jointly with Carington Bowles and C. Dilly) a jigsaw puzzle, Engravings for teaching the elements of English history
and chronology.

1788

Took as his first apprentice William Belch (ca. 1773-1847), who from
ca. 1807 was in partnership with Edward Langley and also published on
his own. Darton moved his business to 55 Gracechurch Street, City of London.

Sent to the Friends' School, Clerkenwell, London.

1789

Withdrawn from school at Clerkenwell, his father "having occasion
for his assistance in his business and an opportunity of educating him himself."

[Darton and Harvey] Formed partnership with Joseph Harvey (1764-1841),
a Quaker printer, son of a mastmaker of Rotherhithe, London. Published
The Visible World by Comenius.

Sent to Ackworth (Quaker) School, Yorkshire.

1792

Joseph Harvey took his younger brother James (1778-1854) as a printing
apprentice. Darton and Harvey bought from John Newbery's descendants the
copyright to 24 ex-Newbery/Carnan/Power sixpenny children's books.

1793

Began republishing some of these, starting with The
History of Goody Two Shoes, using the old Newbery/Carnan blocks.

Lessons for Youth, selected for the use of Ackworth
and other schools .

William apprenticed to his father for seven years.

1796

Trifles for Children. Parts I and II.*

1797

A Present for a Little Girl.*

1798

A Present for a Little Boy*; Trifles for Children. Part III.*

Thomas apprenticed to his father for seven years.

1799

Darton's third son Samuel (1785-1840) apprenticed to his father for
seven years after leaving Ackworth School the previous year. In
compliance with the law, Darton, with Joseph Harvey and James Swan,
registered four presses at Jerusalem Court, a few doors from 55
Gracechurch Street. Swan was in business on his own by 1802. Darton and
Harvey's printing offices were later at Talbot Court adjoining 55
Gracechurch Street and at Star Court, Eastcheap.

1800

The Rational Exhibition .*

Engraved map of the world dated 1800 signed "W. Darton Jun."
in fifth edition of Geography and History, selected
by a lady, 1803 (C. Law, Darton and Harvey, and others).

1801

The Infant's Own Book-case †
; The First [Second]
[Third] Chapter of Accidents and Remarkable Events.*

Original Poems, for Infant Minds [Vol. I].
Darton appointed member of the London Committee of Ackworth School.

[William Darton, Jun.] William set up on his own at 40 Holborn Hill in
premises occupied until 1803 by John Cumming, bookseller. An imprint on
a watchcase cover depicting Ackworth School reads: "London.
Published by W. Darton Junr. Engraver & Printer, 58 Holborn Hill
Decr. 1st. 1803"; the "58" appears to be an alteration on
the plate, perhaps changed from "40," suggesting that he may
have taken over Cumming's premises in late 1803. From No. 40 in 1804 he
published an adult tract concerning a Quaker controversy, A Few Observations tending to expose the unfairness of
some censure on the character of David Sands.

1805

Original Poems, for Infant Minds , Vol. II.
James Harvey, Joseph's brother, became a partner in the printing
business, which from then until 1809 was usually styled "W. Darton,
and J. and J. Harvey." He was not a partner in the publishing house.

Death and Burial of Cock Robin ; The Fakenham Ghost, a true tale , by R.
Bloomfield. London Cries. (jointly with
Darton and Harvey) William entered into partnership with his brother
Thomas. [W. and T. Darton] Portraits of Curious
Characters in London; ca. 1806, The World
Turned Upside Down.

1807

Old Friends in New Dress: or Familiar Fables in
Verse. (jointly with Darton and Harvey) Thomas disowned by the
Society of Friends for marrying "out" (marrying "one not
in profession with Friends").

Darton recorded as one of 49 members of the Board of Governors of the
Royal Jennerian Society for the Extermination of Smallpox (Holden's
Triennial Directory).

From 40 Holborn Hill William and Thomas published The Dun Cow; an hyper-satirical dialogue, in
verse (? by Walter Savage Landor, a reply to Guy's Porridge Pot, a satire on Dr. Samuel
Parr). William and Thomas moved to 58 Holborn Hill.

[Darton, Harvey, and Darton] William Darton's son Samuel became a
partner in the publishing firm. Darton ceased to live at 55 Gracechurch
Street and moved to Plaistow, a village a few miles east of the city.
There, though still a partner in the publishing and printing businesses,
he had a small farm.

1811

[William Darton, Jun.] The partnership between William and Thomas was
dissolved. Thomas set up on his own, mainly as an engraver, at 25 Great
Surrey Street, London.

1819

[Harvey and Darton] Death of William Darton, Sr.; Joseph Harvey was
now senior partner.

[William Darton] On the death of his father, William was no longer
styled "Junior."

1821

Samuel Darton became a member of the London Committee of Ackworth School.

1823

William's son, John Maw Darton (1809-1881), was bound apprentice to
his father for seven years.

1825

For a few years around 1825, William gave the title "Repertory of
Genius" to his business at 58 Holborn Hill.

1830

Joseph Rickerby, one of Harvey and Darton's printers, set up on his
own in Sherbourn Lane where he continued to print many of its publications.

[William Darton and Son] On completing his apprenticeship John Maw
Darton was taken into partnership by his father.

1833

[Darton and Harvey] Joseph Harvey retired in favor of his son Robert
(1805-1867). Samuel Darton now senior partner.

1834

Thomas Gates Darton (1810-1887), Samuel's son, married the daughter of
Maria Hack (1777-1844), one of the firm's principal authors of
children's books.

1836

[Darton and Clark] William retired from the business. His son John
took as partner Samuel Clark (1810-1875), Quaker, son of a basketmaker
of Southampton. Clark wrote for the firm under the pseudonyms "The
Rev. T. Wilson," "Peter Parley," "Uncle John,"
"Reuben Ramble," and "Uncle Benjamin."

Ann Darton (1788-1869), Samuel's widow, opened a toy and fancy goods
shop at the Crosby Hall Repository, 33 Bishopsgate, City of London. From
this address she issued two or three publications, includingThe Brighton Knitting Book (jointly with a
Brighton bookseller, 1846) and On a Consignment of
Shells, 1852.

Partnership between Darton and Clark officially dissolved, but imprint
continued in use until 1845 and occasionally beyond. (Clark graduated
and was ordained in 1846; for his subsequent career in education and the
church, see the Dictionary of National
Biography).

1845

[Darton and Co.] John Maw Darton on his own.

1846

The Gracechurch Street business sold to Robert Yorke Clarke.

1849

The title "Original Infant School Depot and Juvenile
Library" sometimes used to describe the business at about this time.

1854

Death of William Darton the younger.

1862

[Darton and Hodge] John entered into partnership with Frederick Hedge.

1863

The partnership between Darton and Hodge dissolved, but imprint
continued in use till 1866, possibly with Hodge on his own.

1865

With the impending demolition of the Holborn Hill premises to make way
for the new Holborn Viaduct, Darton and Hodge imprints show the double
address: 58 Holborn Hill and 175 Strand.

1866

[Darton and Co., 42 Paternoster Row] Darton and Hodge apparently
ceased to trade. In the same year John resumed business on his own at a
new address.

A SURVEY OF IMPRINTS

Children's books published by William Darton and his sons, Samuel of Gracechurch
Street and William and Thomas of Holborn Hill, are the focus of this exhibition,
which concentrates on the period from William Darton's first published book in
1787 to the late 1830s, when his sons Samuel of Gracechurch Street and William
of Holborn Hill retired from their respective businesses. The brief tenure of
William Darton's grandson Thomas Gates Darton at the Gracechurch Street firm and
the several decades of activity of his grandson John Maw Darton of the Holborn
Hill business are noted only in passing; the Darton firms in the Victorian era
must form another study. During the period examined here, both father and sons
were members of the Society of Friends, a religious and cultural group that
played a leading role in the cause of abolition, the reform of institutional
care of the mentally ill and prison reform, and the movement for universal
literacy. The English Friends at the turn of the nineteenth century were a
prospering homogeneously middle class culture. Their traditionally intense
concentration on the rearing of children allied them with the aspirations of the
larger middle class, as those aspirations expressed themselves in the ideal of
the domesticated sentimental family. Works published by William Darton and his
sons not only shared in the expression of this ideal, but helped to create it.

William Darton's influence on the flourishing children's book trade of the early
nineteenth century stretched across generations. Between 1795 and 1806, three
sons were apprenticed to him. Although it is seldom possible to distinguish the
work of individual apprentices in looking at Darton imprints of this early
period, a viewer should think of a workshop in which the father and a number of
apprentices worked together, including at different times William the younger,
Thomas, and Samuel Darton; some publications may include work by any or all of
them. Engraving work was also sent out; by 1800, the younger members of the
Taylor family in Essex, third generation engravers, "were now so far known
to Darton and Harvey as to be frequently employed on small plates for their
juvenile works," Ann Taylor Gilbert writes in her Autobiography. Ann, Jane, and their brother Isaac Taylor
have left vivid accounts of their years of engraving alongside their father. The
interplay of William Darton and his sons in these apprentice years must have
been equally complex, and the complexity would have increased as each son began
to make his own way in the book trade. An interplay that may not be recovered in
anecdote may perhaps be experienced by viewers of the many dozens of their
publications in this exhibition.

The Elisabeth Ball Collection provided most of the books in this exhibition, with
additions from the Virginia Warren Collection of Old London Street Cries. In the
form of title entries in this catalogue I have pleased myself. Initial
capitalization of words and punctuation are given as on title pages; absence of
punctuation is indicated by spacing; epigraphs are omitted; printers are given
in brackets. Bindings are briefly noted if original; an original binding
preserved within a collector's binding is described as "bound in."

Among the earliest publications with the Darton and Harvey imprint
were antislavery publications, growing out of the intense
involvement of the Society of Friends in the great antislavery
agitation of the late 1780s. This petition by freemen protesting a
North Carolina law allowing the re-enslavement of manumitted persons
was reprinted from a Philadelphia newspaper.

2.

Copper-engraved picture sheet, uncolored. Loaned by the Osborne
Collection of Early Children's Books, Toronto Public Library.

An apprentice has left his mark. The initials "R G" on the
sack in the cart at the top of the sheet identify Richard Golland,
apprenticed to Darton, 1794-1801, and within two weeks of the end of
his term when this sheet was engraved. The initials "J H"
on the second sack are probably a compliment to the printer, Joseph
Harvey; the "D & H" would be an advertisement for
the firm. This picture sheet was among twenty-four Darton and Harvey
picture sheets dated 1799-1805 published in A
Book Of Prints, For Children, To Colour, Or Draw From
[1805], an early coloring book.

3.

William Belch was Darton's first apprentice, 1788-1795. He shared the
imprint with Darton and Harvey of the individual engravings and the
collected volumes of John Church's A Cabinet of
Quadrupeds, 1795-1805, which employed the skills of the
noted artist, Julius Ibbetson. Belch established a successful
business as a children's book publisher; "Johnny Gilpin,"
a halfpenny lottery sheet, carries one of his earliest imprints. A
pencilled note on the backing sheet claims that it was "etched
by George Cruikshank when a boy of 13, 1803-4."

4.

London, Westminster, And Southwark; with the West
& East India Docks, Isle Of Dogs &c.
Corrected to the present time.
Published By Darton & Harvey. Gracechurch Street.
Price One Shilling & Sixpence.
1805.

Hand-colored engraved panels on folded linen.

Maps: Wall sh/England/London/London-St. Maps

Both Gracechurch Street and Holborn Hill lie within the boundary of
the City of London, which is indicated in red. Among the elder
William Darton's early works as an engraver was a set of maps in the
third edition of William Guthrie's New System of
Modern Geography, 1786.

Pink printed and decorated
wrappers with new imprint, "Published By Harvey and Darton."

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .I43 copy 2

This picture book, with a signpost "To Plaistow," the
village to which William Darton had removed, may be his last work
before his death in 1819; the second copy was issued afterwards in
wrappers with the firm's new imprint, "Harvey and Darton."

6.

Nursery Lessons, In Words of One Syllable.
Price Sixpence, Coloured.
London: Published
By Harvey And Darton, Gracechurch Street. 1830.

Lavender printed and decorated wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .N974 1830

Nursery Lessons, In Words Of One
Syllable. Price Sixpence,
Coloured. London: Published By
Darton And Harvey, Gracechurch Street. 1838.

Two copies of Nursery Lessons show the
change of imprint from Harvey and Darton, when Joseph Harvey
continued as senior partner and Samuel Darton as junior, to the
imprint Darton and Harvey, from 1833 to 1838, when Samuel became
senior partner with Robert Harvey as junior.

A Map of Europe. Published by
W. Darton Junr. Engraver 58 Holborn Hill, London
[n.d.]

Salisbury. Published Aug. 14
by W & T Darton, London.
[year omitted]

A W. and T. Darton booklist in London
Cries, 1806, advertises "Watch Papers curiously cut out
with neat painted prints in the centre, 6d. each. Another sort very
highly finished in the colouring, price 6d. also the same on rich
white satin, at 1s each."

"He that hath a calling hath an Estate," this writing sheet
announces. Pictured around the open space in which a child would
show off penmanship are the glassblower, the potter, the builder,
the papermaker, the weaver, the cabinetmaker, bleaching, the
brickmaker, ship building, the shoemaker, painting, and a coal mine.

10.

Uncolored picture sheet with copper-engraved scenes of three rural
houses and a country inn. Loaned by Mr. Lawrence Darton.

This is a scarce example of Thomas Darton's work after his separation
from the Society of Friends and the ending of his partnership with
his brother. He set up as an engraver, a reminder that many of the
delightful engravings with the W. and T. Darton imprint may have
been his work.

12.

An Entire New Plan of The Cities of London
& Westminster, & Borough Of Southwark; The East
& West India Docks, Regents Park, New Bridges,
&c. &c. with the whole of the New Improvements
of the present time.
London:
Published Aug. 9th. 1827,
by Will.m Darton; 58 Holborn Hill.
6th Edition.

Colors indicate the boundaries of the City of London, City of
Westminster, and the Borough of Southwark, along with Rules of the
Kings Bench and Fleet Prisons; public buildings, churches, chapels
and turnpikes are accented by shading and "Intended
improvements" are indicated in yellow. An advertising label on
the back of the map reads:

The most approved MAPS, PLANS, and CHARTS, of every description,
from the best authorities, constantly on sale, at William Darton's
Map, Print, and Chart Warehouse. 58, Holborn Hill, London.

13.

Hand-colored copper engraving of the exterior of
58 Holborn Hill.
London: William Darton, 58,
Holborn Hill, 1822:
where may be had Maps and Prints Wholesale.

Loaned by Mr. Lawrence Darton.

14.

Life of Moses [London: William Darton And
Son. ca. 1835].

Lilly Library call number:
BS580 .M6 L72

[Life of Jesus Christ. London: William Darton And
Son. ca. 1835].

Lilly Library call number:
BT302 .L72

Individual cards from two sets of engraved hand-colored Bible story
cards depict scenes from the lives of Moses and Jesus. Two sons of
William Darton the younger were bound apprentice to their father at
Holborn Hill. John Maw Darton joined the firm at the end of his term
in 1830. The second son, William, died in 1834, a year before
completing his apprenticeship.

On the back cover an advertisement lists The World
And Its Inhabitants; Or Travels of Reuben Ramble as part
of a series: "Pictorial Instruction for Young Children.
Foolscap Quarto, sewed in neat wrappers, each containing Eight large
Coloured Plates, with the Letterpress in bold type." The
illustrations are lithographs. "Reuben Ramble" was a
pseudonym of Samuel Clark, an imaginative imitator of Samuel
Goodrich, the original "Peter Parley." As partner in the
Holborn Hill firm, John Darton oversaw the pirated publication of
many Goodrich works. In his
Recollections, Goodrich prints a letter he had written to
John Darton, in which Goodrich threatened to expose the Darton
piracies in the London Times:

You replied, "I will give you fifty pounds to do it."
"How so?" said I. "Because you will sell my books
without the trouble of my advertising them," was your answer.
"But it will ruin your character," I added.
"Poh!" said you; "London is too big for that."

16.

Jack the Giant-Killer. London
Darton & Co., Holborn Hill [ca. 1860].

White printed and illustrated wrappers mounted on cloth, with list of twenty-two
"Darton's Indestructible Elementary Children's Books" on back cover.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8 .J13 1860

17.

Poor Cock Robin.
London: Darton & Hodge,
Holborn Hill. [ca. 1862].

Printed and illustrated yellow wrappers, with text of
"Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin" printed on back cover.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .C66 1862

The toy book trade, which enlivened the last years of the Holborn
Hill business, may also have contributed to its demise, because of
the large print orders required to make toy books profitable.

Little Truths

It has been observed by some authors, that the minds of children
are as white paper, from which erroneous impressions are difficult
to erase; and the learned ADDISON compares them to marble in the
quarry, capable of being formed and squared by a gradual process,
previous to its being made useful or polished: in this view doth the
Author of the following Little Truths behold the minds of infants.

William Darton,
Little Truths Better Than Great Fables

John Locke concludes Some Thoughts Concerning
Education by explaining that his remarks were "designed for a
Gentleman's Son, who being then very little, I considered only as white
Paper, or Wax, to be moulded and fashioned as one pleases." It is
noteworthy that while Locke was concerned first with molding and imprinting,
Darton thinks of the difficulty of erasing. Little Truths was marketed not
for the little sons of gentlemen, but for the growing numbers of parents of
the trading classes who, like William Darton himself, could pay sixpence and
now cared that their children should have books to read. It is a slight
book, very winning in tone; nevertheless, the aspects of contemporary
thought that would most affect the development of English children's books
converge in its brief introduction. The allusions to Locke and to Joseph
Addison probably come from some intermediate source—magazines and
miscellanies seem to have constituted much of William Darton's reading. The
combination of these with the colorful and homely anecdote that justifies
his little book of "proper information" strikes the characteristic
William Darton note:

That all who read these in their youth, may avoid the familiar mistake of
a person, reputed sensible in many things, who, upon seeing the bloom on a
black plumb in a garden, exclaimed, "I never knew till now where powder
blue came from!"

The world of Little Truths is the marvelous
everyday, where the commonplace is charged with wonder; that was the world,
evidently, of William Darton.

17.

[William Darton].
Little Truths Better Than Great
Fables: In Variety of Instruction for Children from Four to
Eight Years Old. London:
Printed for, and Sold by, William Darton,
White-Lion-Alley, Birchin-Lane, Cornhill. M DCC LXXXVII. [Price Sixpence.]

This exceedingly rare copy of the first edition of William Darton's
first book is part of the Elisabeth Ball Collection of the Pierpont
Morgan Library. Lawrence Darton has suggested that Little Truths may
have been written for William Darton's own family; its rural walk
would represent scenes common to their experience when the family
lived away from the din of London in the quiet village of Tottenham,
where Darton had set up as a grocer.

18.

[William Darton].
Little Truths, For The Instruction Of
Children. Vol. I [II].
London: Printed And Sold By Darton
And Harvey, Gracechurch-Street.
1802. Price Sixpence.

Marbled boards with printed label.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .D22 L77 1802

William Darton published a second volume in 1788,
Little Truths Containing Information on Divers
Subjects. In 1800 both volumes were published under the
newer title, abandoning the slight on "great fables." The
antislavery passage in the second volume was expanded in 1800 to
include references to the poetry of Phillis Wheatley and the letters
of Ignatius Sancho—surely the very earliest mention of these black
writers in a children's book. The children in the dialogue notice
the oddity of saying Columbus "discovered" a country where
people already lived.

Lawrence Darton has noted that in the English first edition the dog
Prince is ordered to "let them goslings alone!" Subsequent
English editions read "those goslings." The reading
"them goslings" in this edition confirms that it derives
from the first edition. Joseph Crukshank, a Quaker publisher
committed to the social causes of the Society, and the publisher of
works by Woolman, Benezet, Benjamin Banneker, and Phillis Wheatley,
had first published Little Truths in
1789; a decade earlier he had published Anthony Benezet's A First Book for Children. While only a
third English edition was appearing by 1790, the book was so popular
in the United States that in 1794 the Boston publisher Samuel Hall
was enthusiastically advertising a sixth American edition "with
many alterations and additions."

20.

Engravings for Teaching The Elements Of English
History And Chronology, after the manner of Dissected Maps for
Teaching Geography. Published as the Act
directs July 1.st 1787 by Carington Bowles, St. Paul's Church
Yard. C. Dilly, Poultry, & W. Darton, Birchin
Lane, London.

Loaned by Mr. Lawrence Darton.

One of the earliest historical jigsaw puzzles bears a Darton imprint
from Birchin Lane in 1787, and a Darton engraving. The handsome
puzzle is signed "John Hewlett Invenit." and "W.
Darton sculp."

Newbery

"Goody Two Shoes" is almost out of print. Mrs.
Barbauld's stuff has banished all the old classics of the nursery;
& the Shopman at Newbery's hardly deigned to reach them off
an old exploded corner of a shelf, when Mary ask'd for them.

Charles Lamb, in a letter to Samuel Coleridge, 1802

Lamb was wrong about "Goody Two Shoes"—Mary Lamb had simply gone to
the wrong bookseller. Since 1793 the heroine of the first novel written
especially for children had been appearing "Newly Dressed" in
Darton and Harvey editions. Lawrence Darton has decoded a manuscript book in
his possession, in William Darton's handwriting, probably made up for his
private use in 1818 or 1819, when he was living at Plaistow, where he would
have had limited access to the firm's official records. In it, William
Darton records the purchase of a lot of twenty-four Newbery-Carnan-Power
"sixpenny books" bought from the descendants of John Newbery at a
sale at the Horn Tavern in London, April 19, 1792: "The whole of the
above twenty four Sorts £105." Among them is "Goody Two Shoes."

It is instructive to set this Newbery classic of 1765 beside a Darton and
Harvey classic of 1804, Original Poems, For Infant
Minds. The earlier book is about rising: an orphan girl, thrown upon
the parish for relief, by the strength of her character, common sense, and
perseverance, rises through society to become lady of the manor. In the
crisis years after the French Revolution, it was this very fantasy of rising
that was most under attack by middle class writers for children, more feared
than Isaac Watts's "Fairies and Bugbears in the Dark." The
frontispiece to the first volume of Original Poems, For
Infant Minds brings together the orphan girl and the coach, but
the static scene is arranged as instructive spectacle for the third figure,
little Ann, the middle class observer, who is being taught to position
herself between the selfish aristocracy and the hapless poor. The lesson
throughout Original Poems, For Infant Minds is
the acceptance of class limitations.

21.

The Following Children's Books Are Printed By
Francis Power (Grandson to the late Mr. J. Newbery,) &
Co. No. 65, near the Bar, in St. Paul's Church-Yard, London. And
sold by Messrs. Champante and Whitrow, No. 2. Jewry-street,
Aldgate. [London:
F. Power, ca.
1790].

Newbery's grandson Francis Power, publisher and bookseller briefly up
to around 1792, lists 83 titles in this advertisement, including
many of the old Newbery-Carnan titles purchased by Darton and Harvey.
Thomas Carnan had died intestate in 1788.

Writing a few months after William Darton's death, the three sons
state that their father's calculations (in papers found in the
manuscript trade book), which seem to have made him pessimistic
about the future of the business, were in error.

23.

The History Of Little Goody Two-Shoes; Otherwise
called, Mrs. Margery Two-Shoes. With
The Means by which she acquired her Learning and Wisdom, and in
consequence thereof her Estate; set forth at large for the
Benefit of those,

Who from a State of Rags and Care,
And having Shoes but half a Pair;
Their Fortune and their Fame would fix,
And gallop in a Coach and Six.

See the Original Manuscript in
the Vatican at Rome, and the Cuts byMichael Angelo.
Illustrated with the Comments of our great modern
Critics.
The Fifth Edition.
London: Printed for Newbery and
Carnan, at No. 65, the North Side of St. Paul's
Church-yard, 1768.
[Price Six-pence.]

Dutch floral boards.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .G65 H65 1768 vault

The fifth edition was published the year after John Newbery's death
by his son Francis and stepson Thomas Carnan. Among the delightful
flourishes characteristic of the Newbery publishing style is "A
letter from the Printer, which he desires may be inserted":

Sir,

I Have done with your Copy, so you may return it to the Vatican,
if you please; and pray tell Mr. Angelo to brush up the Cuts,
that, in the next Edition, they may give us a good Impression.

In this late edition, Thomas Carnan, who assumed control of the
Newbery business, has altered the traditional form of the book,
omitting the appendix. The engaging copper frontispiece has worn
out; in 1783 Carnan had substituted a not very elegant but
long-lasting wood block, which, in this copy, has been hand-colored
by a child owner, perhaps one of its competing inscribers: "Ann
Harpers Book 1796" and "Eliza Harper har [sic] Book 1796."

25.

[The History of Goody Two Shoes; Otherwise
called Mrs Margery Two Shoes. With her
Means of Acquiring Learning, Wisdom, and Riches. London
Printed & sold by Darton & Harvey
Gracechurch Street
1793. Price 6.d.]

Blue floral boards.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .G65 H67 1793

For the first Darton and Harvey edition, the wood block used as the
frontispiece of the Carnan edition has been cut down and re-used as
an illustration in the third chapter. The new frontispiece engraved
on copper for the Darton and Harvey edition is missing from this
copy, which is bound in unusual blue floral boards.

26.

The History Of Goody Two Shoes, With Her Means Of
Acquiring Learning, Wisdom, And Riches.
London: Printed And Sold By Darton
And Harvey, No. 55, Gracechurch Street. 1801. [Price Sixpence.] [Darton and Harvey, Printers].

Overmarbled boards.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .G65 H67 1801

27.

The History Of Goody Two Shoes, With Her Means Of
Acquiring Learning, Wisdom, And Riches.
London: Printed And Sold By Darton
And Harvey, No. 55 Gracechurch Street. 1806 [Price Sixpence].

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .G65 H67 1806

27b.

The History Of Goody Two-Shoes, With Her Means Of
Acquiring Learning, Wisdom, And Riches.
London: Printed For Darton, Harvey,
And Darton, No. 55, Gracechurch-Street. 1817. [Darton, Harvey, and
Co. Printers].

Buff printed and decorated wrappers bound in.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .G65 H67 1817

The view of Goody Two Shoes continues to change with time. On the
front wrapper of the Elisabeth Ball copy of the 1817 edition is a
handwritten note attributing authorship: "by Mr. Giles
Jones—Grandfather of Mr. J. Winter Jones late Principal librarian at
the British Museum 1881."

The Visible World

Going a short time since to visit a poor aged woman, I was
surprised to find one side of her room covered with printed papers
and pictures. She told me they were the collection of her children
and grand-children; who, instead of tearing them, had suffered them
to be pasted against the wall; that they not only answered the
purpose of covering the ragged places in the paper hangings, but
afforded an opportunity for the children to read, and employed her
frequently in giving them an account of many of the subjects depicted.

William Darton, The Rational Exhibition

Darton was first of all a maker of pictures. "Until very lately,"
he writes with pride in Little Jack Of All
Trades, "children's books were only allowed coarse wooden cuts:
but now the copper-plate engraver condescends to work for them also."
Perhaps there is an irony in William Darton's appropriation of many of the
sophisticated wood engravings of Thomas Bewick, which he turned into
simplified copperplate cuts! What Bewick called his "tale-pieces,"
individual scenes contextualizing his engravings of animals and birds in an
ongoing narrative of country life, embodied visual commentary that could be
elaborated by each reader. The interaction of generations of children with
Bewick's art is dramatized in the opening of Jane
Eyre, in which the child escapes into the imaginative world of
Bewick's vignettes. William Darton's habit was to appropriate a Bewick
tail-piece and devise his own commentary, limiting the narrative, and losing
the depth and complexity of the wood engraving in the copper-engraved
imitation. Yet even in their simplified outlines, the images are compelling,
and William Darton's many copies of Bewick's animals and birds lend a
dignity and presence not usually encountered in children's books of the period.

28.

Used as tail-piece in the
1791 edition of A General History of Quadrupeds.

[William Darton].
Trifles For Children, Part 1. London
Printed by W. Darton and J. Harvey Gracechurch
Street. September 1st 1796.

Marbled wrappers. Loaned by Mr. Lawrence Darton.

Darton has copied Bewick's image of a man carrying a woman and child
across the stream directly onto copper, producing a mirror image.
The entire page is engraved, with the text interpreting the picture:
"Quite Loaded! Take care poor man! a trip would be very bad,
and might cause the downfall of all the family and their bas-ket of muffins."

A Present For A Little Girl is a virtual
homage to Bewick, with nineteen copies of animals or tail-pieces
from A General History of Quadrupeds. The
Elisabeth Ball copy appears to be a variant printing, with the
plates rearranged; the mule and the zebra face the title page, and
the plate copying Bewick's peacocks, from History
of British Birds, which had just been published in 1797,
is placed at the end.

30.

Uncolored
copper-engraved picture sheet. Loaned by the Osborne Collection
of Early Children's Books, Toronto Public Library.

Picture sheets were often apprentice work, but the elder William
Darton may have engraved these wild cats himself; they are all
copied from Bewick's General History of Quadrupeds.

31.

Thomas Bewick.
History Of British Birds.
The Figures Engraved On Wood By T. Bewick.
Vol. I. Containing The History And Description Of Land
Birds. Newcastle: Printed By
Sol. Hodgson, For Beilby & Bewick: Sold By Them, And G.
G. And J. Robinson, London. 1797.

Quarter polished calf and marbled
boards, edges marbled.

Lilly Library call number:
QL690 .G7 B57

The tail-piece to the jay is the lively vignette of the runaway cart,
in which Bewick succeeded in conveying the impression of a turning wheel.

32.

[William Darton].
The Rational Exhibition For Children.
London. Printed by
Darton and Harvey, Grace Church Street. 1800 March 8.th [Printed by Darton and Harvey].

Flexible marbled boards.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .R23

Darton has copied the runaway cart for his section "Boys in Danger":

We are indebted to a very ingenious draftsman for our next
print,* and if the republishing of it should be the mean of keeping
but one little boy, in all England, safe from harm, we conclude that
it will give him equal pleasure with ourselves.

*T. Bewick of
Newcastle, engraver of some of the most ingenious wood cuts that the
age has produced.

The sons, Samuel of Gracechurch Street and William of Holborn Hill,
jointly issued this edition in 1824. One of the plates bears the
imprint "London. Published by Joseph Harvey & Samuel
Darton, August 1824," an unusual appearance of Samuel's given
name. The title page scene of the old woman and her wall of pictures
has been vigorously reinterpreted. The gesture of pointing out and
describing pictures represents the habitual form of the elder
William Darton's books for children.

34.

[Johannes Amos Comenius].
The Visible World; Or, The Chief Things Therein; Drawn In Pictures.
Originally Written In Latin And High Dutch; Now
rendered Easy to the Capacities of Children.
London: Printed and sold by Darton
and Harvey, 55, Gracechurch Street.
Price 1s. Or 1s.6d. in Red Leather.
MDCCXCI.

Dutch floral boards. Loaned
by the Department of Special Collections, University of
California at Los Angeles.

One of the earliest publications from Gracechurch Street is an
edition of Orbis Sensualium Pictus, Comenius's famous picture book.
The engravings and the English text appear to be based on the
twelfth edition of Charles Hoole's translation, printed for S.
Leacroft in 1777, with omissions and revisions; the Latin has been
dropped. The Darton edition excerpts a line from Hoole's
translator's preface for its title page: "Any good Thing is the
better being the more communicated." The

"Advertisement" quotes a passage from Hezekiah Woodward,
again lifted from Hoole's preface: "If we could make our words
as legible to children as pictures are, their information would be
quickened, and learning sure":

And if we had books, wherein are the pictures of all creatures,
herbs, beasts, fish, fowl, &c. they would stand us in great
stead: for pictures are the most intelligent books that children can
look upon.

35.

The Book of Nouns, Or Things which maybe
seen. London: Printed by
Darton and Harvey Gracechurch Street
1800.

Engravings portray "The Ounce," and "A Quail from
Egypt."The Book of Nouns
conforms to the object teaching method recommended by Comenius when
he called his Orbis Sensualium Pictus
"our little Encyclopaedia of things subject to the
senses." It is advertised in Instructive
Hints as "a small Toy Volume."

36.

The Civet. The Porcupine. The Antelope.
London: William Darton, Holborn
Hill. [ca. 1825].

Three
separate prints, each representing a single animal,
copper-engraved and hand-colored, copied from Thomas Bewick's
General History of Quadrupeds, 1790. Loaned by Mr. Lawrence Darton.

William Darton the younger, who may have assisted in engraving some
of the Bewick copies in his father's books when he was apprenticed
at Gracechurch Street, published these handsome hand-colored prints
in the 1820s.

Little Jack of All Trades

Children, for this small book some thanks are due,
The Printer made it purposely for you.

William Darton, Little Jack Of All Trades

William Blake was still apprenticed to the copper engraver Basire when
William Darton finished his apprenticeship to a London engraver in 1775; two
years later, Thomas Bewick would be in London for his brief stay away from
the northern countryside, given work by another copper engraver, Isaac
Taylor, grandfather of the poets, Ann and Jane. The Quaker diarist James
Jenkins remembered William Darton as he was in the late 1780s, after he had
"removed to London, and there resumed his original trade, Engraving, to
which he afterwards added those of Bookselling, and Stationary, and by the
exercise of that active industry which seems natural to his family,
established a large, and profitable business." In 1787 William Darton's
trade card identified him as "engraver, stationer, and printer,"
and although he formed a partnership with the printer Joseph Harvey in 1791,
who thereafter handled the printing side of the business, Darton is
described in the Clothworkers' Company's Records of Apprentices variously as
engraver, printer, and bookseller. In Little Jack Of All
Trades, the author reflects with pride that "Guy's noble
Hospital was founded by a BOOKSELLER; and that the great and immortal Dr.
Franklin was once, like me, A JOURNEYMAN PRINTER."

37.

[William Darton].
Little Jack Of All Trades, With
Suitable Representations. London:
Printed And Sold By Darton And Harvey,
Gracechurch-Street. 1804.
[Darton and Harvey, Printers].

Two copies are shown, one in buff printed and decorated wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
T48 .D22 L77 1804

[William Darton].
Little Jack Of All Trades, With
Suitable Representations. Part II.
London: Printed And Sold
By Darton And Harvey, Gracechurch-Street. 1806. [Darton and Harvey, Printers].

Representing many trades, Little Jack Of All
Trades is especially interesting for its explanations of
many aspects of bookmaking. The title page depicts the rolling press
of the copperplate engraver; there are engravings of the printer's
devil inking the type in the hand press, of the copperplate engraver
at work, and of bookbinding and papermaking. During William Darton's
lifetime, most of the illustrated books published by his firm were
engraved with copperplates, and he apprenticed three of his sons to
the trade. Engravings within the text instead of on separate plates
required that sheets be put first through the printer's press and
then through the rolling press.

38.

The Ancient And Renowned History Of Whittington
And His Cat. Revised and enlarged, for
the Amusement of all good little Children.
London: Printed And Sold By Darton
And Harvey, Gracechurch-Street. 1809. Price Sixpence.
[Printed by W. Darton and J. and J. Harvey].

Buff printed and decorated wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .W59 1809

Moving between the printer's press and the rolling press, the printer
has miscalculated the overlap of image and text; the title page
vignette of young Whittington and his cat overlaps the London
imprint. Present at the wedding were "the great John of Gaunt,
Chaucer the poet and numbers of other celebrated persons." This
copy has been inscribed in a very youthful hand "Quintillia
Turton her Book 1812" inside the front wrapper, and more
falteringly inside the back wrapper, "Miss Q Turton."

39.

My Friend, Or Incidents In Life, Founded on
Truth, A Trifle For Children.
London: Printed By And For W. And T.
Darton, Corner of St. Andrew's Court, Holborn-Hill.
1810.

Printed and decorated
yellow wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.9 .M997 1810

The running title "My Friend" has been submerged in
martyr's flames due to a printer's miscalculation in this Holborn
Hill publication. William and Thomas Darton produced this book in a
format popular at their father's Gracechurch Street firm. Throughout
the nineteenth century, children in the Dissenting tradition
continued to read, or simply to study the pictures, in Foxe's Book of Martyrs. A Quaker children's book
published at mid-century in Indiana portrays a child reading Foxe.

40.

Ann Murry.
Mentoria: Or, The Young Ladies
Instructor, In Familiar Conversations On Moral And Entertaining
Subjects. Calculated to improve Young
Minds, In the Essential, as well as Ornamental Parts of Female
Education. By Miss Ann Murry. Dedicated, by Permission, To The
Princess Royal. London:
Printed by J. Fry and Co. For Edward and Charles
Dilly, in the Poultry. M.DCC.LXXVIII.

Burgundy half leather,
marbled boards. Loaned by Mr. Lawrence Darton.

The two copperplate engravings, designed by Murry, are signed
"W. Darton, sc.," the earliest identified instances of
William Darton as engraver. Ann Murry lived at Tottenham, where
Darton was keeping a village store during these years. She wrote
Mentoria for her pupils, mixing
anecdote, poetry, information, and conduct advice in the question
and answer style made popular by Rousseau. Mentoria and Murry's sequel to it were popular
into the next century.

41.

Geography And History, Selected By A Lady, For
The Use Of Her Own Children. The Fifth
Edition, Enlarged, And Illustrated With Maps.
London: Printed For C. Law, J.
Scatcherd, Longman And Rees, And Darton And Harvey; By T.
Skelton, Southampton. 1803.

Bound in sheep. Loaned by Mr.
Lawrence Darton.

William, the eldest son, worked with his father in the business at
the age of eight and a half, and served as his apprentice from the
age of fourteen. Dated 1800, during his apprenticeship, this
engraved map of the world signed "W. Darton jun.r" may be
his first signed work as an engraver.

42.

[William Darton].
Little Jack Of All Trades, With
Suitable Representations. London:
Printed for the Proprietors Darton and Harvey; And
Sold by J. Harris, St. Paul's Church-Yard.
1804. [Price One Shilling plain, Two Shillings coloured.]
[S. Couchman, Printer, Throgmorton-Street, London].

Buff printed and decorated wrappers bound in.

Lilly Library call number:
T48 .D22 L77

[ William Darton].
Little Jack Of All Trades; With
Suitable Representations. Part II.
London: Printed And Sold
By Darton And Harvey, Gracechurch-Street. 1805. [Darton and Harvey, Printers].

Lilly Library call number:
T48 .D22 L77

The two parts have been bound together by a collector. In Part I, a
young woman is seated at the sewing press in the bookbindery:
"Children, particularly, should never suffer themselves to be
tempted by the rich outside of a book: often a worthless production
shines in gold, whilst many a moral and useful work appears in a
plain and simple cover." The frontispiece of Part II shows an
artisan grinding and mixing colors.

43.

William Darton's note prefacing The Rational Exhibition complains
that "while the plates were engraving, and before the printing
was begun, paper advanced upwards of thirty per cent!" The use
of overmarbled paper was a way of cutting expenses. The great
expense of materials discouraged writing as well as publishing.

The elder William Darton might have raised an eyebrow at "the
rich outside" of this elegantly bound book, which is also fancy
on the inside with blue tinted paper and four pretty etchings. It
was a publication of the Holborn Hill firm in the 1840s, when his
grandson, John Darton, was a partner.

From the beginning to the middle of the nineteenth century, color in
commercial children's books meant hand-coloring, often done by quite
young people; in one of her stories, Eliza Fenwick portrayed a poor
girl of eleven or twelve who colored children's books for a living.
Seated around a table, each with a brush and a single water color,
the children painted single sections as the sheets were passed
around. More exacting work was done by professional colorists, or by
impoverished women using their art training. The Lilly Library has
two versions of Methode Amusante with different engravings of the
same subjects. Here the engraver has added a charming detail,
"Darton et Harvey," on a ship's sail, which has been
colored yellow.

46.

A hand-colored copper-engraved picture sheet has been backed with
scraps to stiffen it before cutting into individual cards, probably
by an early owner. The rhyme follows the form of "A was an
Archer," beginning "A was an Anchor."

47.

Priscilla Bell Wakefield.
Juvenile Travellers; Containing The
Remarks Of A Family During A Tour Through The Principal States
And Kingdoms Of Europe: With an Account of their Inhabitants,
Natural Productions, And Curiosities. By Priscilla Wakefield.
London: Printed And Sold By Darton
And Harvey, Gracechurch Street. 1802.

Half green sheep, embossed green
cloth, marbled endpapers.

Lilly Library call number:
D980 .W74 J97 1802

The most famous of Priscilla Wakefield's travel books, first
published in 1801, went into nineteen editions in fifty years. Her
diary entry records "a large offer from Darton for the Juvenile
Travellers"; the firm's records show that it was
£200, as far as can be determined the largest sum paid by
Darton and Harvey for any manuscript. The payment was a tribute to a
major author, and an aristocrat among Friends, the
great-granddaughter of Robert Barclay the Apologist; it was also an
indication that Darton and Harvey were prospering. The publishers
have produced a handsome book, bound in embossed cloth, with a
hand-colored engraved map as frontispiece.

Chapters of Accidents

Although the pig we have been speaking of acted well, we should
remember that pigs are swine, and not all of a temper: nor are the
same hogs equally kind at all times.

William Darton, A Present For A Little Boy

Among the many sources illustrated in The Rational
Exhibition are Bewick, John Gay, Southey's letters from Spain, and
the Encyclopaedia Britannica, from which is taken
the story of a wonderful bullfrog, a leap in Mark Twain's direction. William
Darton seems also to have been an avid reader of the popular newspapers and
magazines of the time, which catered to a readership amused by the
miscellaneous and the anecdotal. His small anthologies of chronic anxiety
should be set beside some of the news sources upon which he draws. The
liveliest sources of the melancholy circumstance are old or new issues of
the European Magazine, or the Gentleman's Magazine, which listed
"Accidents" in its index in 1800, with some thirty dreadful
occurrences ranging from "child devoured by a kite" to "Mrs.
O'Brien burnt to death."

48.

The European Magazine, And London Review.
V. XLIII, May, 1803.

Lilly Library call number:
VK1473 .G78 A17

A sample of the violent domestic incident that fascinated
contemporary readers can be seen in the section called
"Domestic Intelligence" in the May 1803 issue of the
European Magazine. Admiral Reeve is
thrown from a one-horse chaise; a child in a cradle at Welling,
Herts, is partly devoured by rats ("Hopes are entertained of
its recovery"); a maniac claims that "he had just risen
from the dead, and was sent by Heaven to kill Bonaparte."

To follow A Present For A Little Boy
through several editions is to witness some interesting revisions by
the author, and a fascinating alteration in perspective on the part
of the successive illustrators. A newspaper account of a little girl
in Kent who tried to take a piglet from its mother ("the girl,
who was not more than seven years of age, fell into the sty, and
would probably have lost her life, but for the timely assistance of
a neighbour") is illustrated by an engraving of a small child
and a very big sow. Darton has put the story in a section called
"Docility of Animals."

50.

[William Darton].
A Present For A Little Boy.
London: Printed by and for Darton
and Harvey, Gracechurch-Street. 1802. [Price One Shilling].
[Printed by Darton and Harvey].

In 1802, the section has been retitled "Anecdotes of Tame and
Wild Swine"; a passage on American pigs has been added. The
author writes that "herds of swine, in America, upon hearing
the sound of a bell, or the blowing of a horn, or conch shell,
return from the woods to their master's farm, where they remain
during the night in safety."

51.

[William Darton].
A Present For A Little Boy.
London: Printed By And For Darton
and Harvey, Gracechurch-Street. 1804. Price One Shilling.
[Printed by Darton and Harvey].

Marbled wrappers bound in. ❧

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .D22 P93 1804

[William Darton].
A Present For A Little Boy.
London: Printed By And For Darton
and Harvey, Gracechurch-Street. 1806. [Printed by Will. Darton, and Joseph and James Harvey].

Marbled wrappers bound in.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .D22 P93 1806

Anxiety mounts in the interpretation of the scene in the 1804
edition; the girl has grabbed the piglet, the sow has grabbed the
girl. A comforting touch is that the sow is much smaller and the
girl is a little bigger. In 1806, the scene is again redrawn, this
time with the little girl gesturing heavenward.

After William Darton's death in 1819, his sons Samuel of Gracechurch
Street and William of Holborn Hill jointly published some of their
father's books, including A Present For A Little
Boy. Hand-coloring has softened the encounter in this copy
of the 1823 edition.

53.

Little Prattle Over A Book of Prints.
With Easy Tales For Children.
London: Published by Wm. Darton and
Jo.h Harvey. according to Act of Parliament. Sept.r 29 1804. Price 6 pence.

Flexible marbled boards.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .L777 1804

This easy reader resembles in format William Darton's three-part
Trifles For Children. "More
Mischief! Playing With Gunpowder" is the subject of an engraved
page. "How many accidents have happened on rejoicing days,
particularly on the 5th of November!"

This translation for German-speaking Americans was made from the 1808
American edition of Little Prattle Over A Book Of
Prints. In the American edition, the reference to November
fifth, Guy Fawkes Day, is changed to the Fourth of July, and is so
translated: "Wie viele vergleichen Begebenheiten haben sich
ereignet an Freudentagen, besonders an den 4ten July!" The
illustrations are woodcuts copied from the cuts in the American
edition, which were in turn copied from the copper engravings in the
Darton edition.

55.

[William Darton].
The Third Chapter Of Accidents And
Remarkable Events: Containing Caution And Instruction For
Children. London: Printed By
And For Darton And Harvey Gracechurch-Street. 1801. [Darton and Harvey, Printers].

Marbled wrappers. Loaned by Mr. Lawrence Darton.

The ascent in a balloon from St. George's Field is marred by "an
unlucky accident happening"; nevertheless young Appleby
"ascended to a great height, and made a very fine
appearance." The plummeting figure in the engraving is Mr.
Arnold, who "had but one leg." The account is taken from
the European Magazine for 1785. The
Gentleman's Magazine also carried
the story.

The younger William Darton of Holborn Hill published a book of wood
engravings of children's games, A Nosegay for the
Trouble of Culling, 1812, with a commentary pervaded by
anxiety in the tradition of his father. The author is unknown. There
are no pigs, no gunpowder, and only toy balloons, but the remarkable
text emphasized the danger and the constant threat of accident,
while in the fine engravings, oblivious hearty children went on
about their play. This picture sheet was made up of old wood blocks
after 1819, four of them from A Nosegay for the
Trouble of Culling, and one of a street crier from
London Melodies, also ca. 1812. The
wood engraver has carved the publisher's imprint into a tree trunk,
in the manner of Bewick.

Miniatures

When there was nothing, God made the world, with every plant and
living thing; last of all he made a man, whose name was Adam, and a
woman, who was Eve, and put them in a garden; for it was warm and
they needed not a house: there, the beasts were tame and playful,
and fruit hung down from every bough. There was but one tree of
which God said they should not eat, yet they plucked from that very
tree! Till then, they were happy: at that moment they became
miserable! God stooped from heaven to reprove their folly, and found
them out in the deepest shade: his holy angel drove them from their
garden; and man was left to wander about the silent world, under the
displeasure of his God.

"The Old Testament. Chap. 1," A Short
History Of The Bible And Testament

Among the most delightul productions of the Gracechurch Street firm are
miniature books. Encased in wooden boxes made up to resemble adult
furniture, they were fancy additions both to a child's library and to the
toy box. In Mary Elliott's The Gift Of
Friendship, 1822, a child describes a homemade one with "the
front of pasteboard, carved with a pen-knife, and isinglass in each square,
so that it looks quite as well as the expensive ones you see in the
toy-shops, and for which they ask three or four pounds." The publisher
John Marshall introduced the miniature library around 1799; Darton and
Harvey were quick to follow his example with The Infants
Own Book-Case, a splendid example of which is in the Elisabeth
Ball Collection. It is a pleasure to set beside it the rare A Miniature Historic Library, loaned by Ruth E.
Adomeit, containing the famous miniatures designed by Alfred Mills.

57.

The Infants Own Book-Case.
Sold by Darton and Harvey
London. Price 4s.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .I435

The Cries Of London, Alphabetically Arranged.
1800.

Lecture On The Alphabet.
1800.

The Picture Shop For Little Children. Parts I-II.
1801.

The Infant's Own Book. Parts I-II.
1801.

People Of All Nations, A Useful Toy For Girl Or
Boy. Parts I-II.
1801.

The sliding cover has retained its vivid representation of shelved
books. Each of the eight volumes contained within has on its front
cover a printed decorated label, "The Infant's own Book, by
Darton & Harvey, London"; a paper label with a bird in
a cage decorates the back cover. All have the publisher's and
printer's imprint of Darton and Harvey and are dated 1800 or 1801.
The two parts of The Picture Shop For Little
Children list "Price Threepence" on their title
pages. Included with the books in Elisabeth Ball's copy is a set of
twenty-five alphabet cards, each with a hand-colored copper
engraving of a bird.

58.

The Uncle's Present, A New Battledoor.
Published by Jacob Johnson, 147
Market-Street, Philadelphia [ca.1810] [Cover: Sold By
Benjamin Warner].

The Virginia Warren Collection.

Lilly Library call number:
GT3450 .U54

The Quaker publisher Jacob Johnson of Philadelphia produced editions
of many Darton imprints. The Uncle's
Present is a cardboard folder with many of the figures
copied from the engravings of The Cries Of
London in The Infants Own Book-case.

Alfred Mills specialized in
designs for juvenile miniature books. Little is known about the
commentary on the engravings, which may have been written by persons
other than Mills; there is one record of a payment by Darton and
Harvey for "Mills' England P. Wakefield 5 mo 10th 1809 6. 6. 0."

59.

A Short History Of The Bible And Testament, With
48 Neat Engravings, Designed By Alfred Mills.
London: Published By W. Darton
& J. Harvey, Gracechurch-Street; And By J. Harris, late
Newbery, St. Paul's Church-Yard. October 10, 1807.
[London: printed by W. Darton and J. and J. Harvey].

Red leather, title and rules in gilt on spine. Loaned by Miss
Ruth E. Adomeit.

Lilly Library call number:
BS408 .B41 miniatures

The very rare earliest edition of the miniature books of Alfred Mills
is considered to have finer engravings than later editions; it is
also in a smaller format. Its price is advertised on the title page
as "1s. 6d. in paper covers; 2s. in leather; and at other
prices in morocco." This beautiful copy is bound in red leather.

60.

A Short History Of The Bible And Testament, With
48 Neat Engravings, Designed By Alfred Mills.
Published By Johnson & Warner, No. 147,
Market street, Philadelphia.
1809. John Bouvier, Printer.

Drab boards, leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
BS408 .A15 miniatures

The giver, or the receiver, of this American edition of the Mills
Bible, from the Elisabeth Ball Collection, has lovingly inscribed it
with a colored drawing of a rose:

French and Swedish translations of the Mills Bible have engraved
plates copied in reverse. According to Ruth Adomeit, the Swedish
book's designation as "second edition" may simply mean
that this edition is second to the copied English edition.

62.

Pictures Of English History, In Miniature,
Designed by Alfred Mills. With Descriptions. Vol. I.
London:
Printed for Darton and Harvey, Gracechurch-Street;
and J. Harris, St. Paul's Church-Yard. 1809. [Printed by Darton and Harvey].

Black leather, tooled gilt border on front and back covers,
board edges and turn-ins tooled in gilt, edges gilt, title and
ornaments in gilt on spine. Loaned by Miss Ruth E. Adomeit.

Lilly Library call number:
DA32 .M65 v.1 copy 1

Pictures Of English History, In Miniature,
Designed by Alfred Mills. With Descriptions. Vols. I-II.
London:
Printed for Darton, Harvey, and Darton,
Gracechurch-Street; And J. Harris, St. Paul's
Church-Yard. 1811.
[Printed by Darton, Harvey, and Co.].

Green leather, double-line border rolled in blind on covers,
title rules and ornament in gilt on spine. Loaned by Miss Ruth
E. Adomeit.

64.

Portraits Of The Sovereigns Of England, From
Egbert to the present Time. From Drawings By Alfred Mills. With
some Account of their Lives.
London: Printed for Darton, Harvey,
& Darton, Gracechurch-street; and J. Harris, St. Paul's
Church-Yard. 1817.

The Politics of Education

Order being so conspicuous in all the movements of Divine
Providence, a wise teacher will compare Divine principles and things
with human, and make an inference to good purpose. It will not do
merely to mention a thing of this kind once, and there leave it; the
idea may be continually revived, and repeated in a variety of
shapes, and always possess the force of novelty, from the extensive
variation it may embrace. It should not be repeated and enforced on
the mind of a solitary individual, or single offender, but be
written as a law, in the minds of all the leading boys in a school.
Such will impress it on the others: for, to form the leading boys in
a school to any one purpose, is like engraving a design on a
copperplate, from which some thousands of impressions may be taken.

Joseph Lancaster, Improvements In Education As
It Respects The Industrious Classes Of The Community

The beginning of the nineteenth century was a time of transition from the
informal family-oriented education of children to new institutions created
to expand access to education and to exercise control over what children
learned. In 1803, Darton and Harvey published the Quaker Joseph Lancaster's
Improvements in Education. Lancaster's work was as important in the United
States as in England; the state educational system of New York was an early
attempt to put his ideas into practice. Lancaster differed with Andrew
Bell's earlier proposals for a monitorial system by insisting that the
education, while Christian, should be nonsectarian. In her bitter attack on
Lancaster, Sarah Trimmer charged that monitors not committed to the
Established Church constituted "a ready instrument of sedition and rebellion."

66.

The Effects Of Vanity; Or, Mary Meanwell And
Kitty Pertly. A Tale. Written For the Use Of Sunday
Schools. By the Author of The Contrast;
or the History of James and Thomas.
London: Sold by Scatcherd and Co.
Ave-Maria-Lane; Champante and Whitrow, Jury-street, Aldgate; T.
Hookham, New Bond-street; Darton and Co. Gracechurch-street; and
all other Booksellers in Town and Country
[Price 6d. or 4s.6d. per Dozen.]
[1791].

The efforts of the Dissenters' Sunday School movement to teach the
poor to read came under attack after the French Revolution; such
teaching was "a dangerous measure," Hannah More admitted,
unless they were provided with "safe books." William
Darton, using the imprint "Darton and Co.," joined in the
publication of this tract "for the use of Sunday Schools."
Reanimated by More's twin passions for moral reform and political
stability, religious tracts enlivened by entertaining moral stories
exerted a profound influence on the development of children's
literature. In 1799, Darton and Harvey published an edition of one
of Hannah More's Cheap Repository Tracts, with an English-French
parallel text.

67.

Lindley Murray.
Introduction To The English Reader:
Or, A Selection Of Pieces, In Prose And Poetry;
Calculated To Improve The Younger Classes Of
Learners, In Reading; And To Imbue Their Minds With The Love Of
Virtue. With Rules And Observations For Assisting Children To
Read With Propriety. By Lindley Murray, Author Of "English
Grammar, Adapted To The Different Classes Of Learning,"
&c. York: Printed by
T. Wilson and R. Spence, For Longman And Rees, No. 39,
Pater-Noster-Row; Darton And Harvey, No. 55,
Grace-Church-Street, London; And Wilson And Spence,
York. 1801.

Bound in sheep.

Lilly Library call number:
LB1573 .A2 M907

Darton and Harvey shared in the imprints of the educational books of
Lindley Murray, an American Friend from Pennsylvania, who settled in
Yorkshire. His English Grammar, written
for a Friends' school for girls, became a standard text both in
England and America. Murray's graded readers made up a large part of
the curriculum at Friends' schools. An appropriate choice for a
child's reader, Wordsworth's poem "The Pet Lamb" was based
on the experience of a child in the village school in Grasmere. The
poem had just been published in the second volume of Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems, 1800.

68.

Handsome engravings illustrate a spelling book, which may be one of
William Darton's own works. O, P, Q, and R are illustrated by Owl
& Mouse, Puss & Bird, Quail & Young, and Roses.

69.

The Little Teacher, Or Child's First Spelling
Book. By A Parent. A New
Edition. London: Printed
For Darton, Harvey, And Darton, No. 55,
Gracechurch-Street. 1814.
[Printed by Darton, Harvey, and Co.].

Gray boards, green leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
PE1119 .A1 P22 1814

An edition of The Little Teacher, perhaps
written by William Darton, appeared in 1798. The frontispiece
portrays a village Dame's school, with the Dame spinning while her
pupils read. Paul Hawkins Fisher, traveling on horseback in the
Cotswolds in 1870, the year of the Education Act, came upon just
such a cottage school: "The mistress was walking backward and
forward, spinning some wool into yarn and performing her scholarly
duties at the same time. A boy was in the act of reading his lesson
aloud to her."

70.

Joseph Lancaster.
Outlines Of A Plan For Educating Ten
Thousand Poor Children, By Establishing Schools In Country Towns
and Villages; And For Uniting Works Of Industry With Useful
Knowledge. Under Royal Patronage. By
Joseph Lancaster. London:
Printed And Sold At The Free School, Borough Road;
And May Be Had Of Hatchard, Piccadilly; Darton And Harvey,
Gracechurch Street; And J. And A. Arch, Cornhill.
1806.
Price One shilling And Sixpence.
[Printed by J. Lancaster, Borough Road].

Blue wrappers.

4-1975

Training some students as "monitors," Lancaster was able to
run a school for many hundreds of poor children in London, which was
both an innovative experiment in preparing teachers for mass
education, and a pioneering introduction of factory methods into the
schoolroom. Of the widespread practice of flogging children,
Lancaster wrote that "Some teachers plead for the lash . . .
and that with as much zeal as the partizans of Robespierre did for
the guillotine!" Lancaster's own "non-violent"
punishments were extremely controversial; some of them were adopted
by factory owners to intimidate children in the labor force.

71.

[Elizabeth Coltman Heyrick].
Instructive Hints, In Easy Lessons
For Children. By E**** C******.
London: Printed By And For Darton
And Harvey, Gracechurch-street. 1800. Price Sixpence. Good
Allowance to Schools, and to those who give them away.
[Printed by Darton and Harvey].

Instructive Hints was recommended in
Lancaster's Improvements In Education;
it teaches children how to handle and care for books. A letterpress
note inside the title page of Plain Tales
states that "The children of the poor can never be taught to
read with facility and pleasure unless they have books exactly
levelled at their capacities." Elizabeth Coltman Heyrick wrote
for the antislavery cause.

The Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, founded in
1698, was a principal sponsor of the Charity School movement; there
were 2,000 such schools in 1800. The London Charity Schools held an
annual assembly, which took place from 1782 in St. Paul's. Beginning
with the 1818 edition of City Scenes,
Blake's poem "Holy Thursday" from
Songs of Innocence, 1789, is printed without attribution
and with his description of the children, "their innocent faces
clean," altered to read "their hands and faces
clean," a sad distortion of the Blakean idea of spiritual
innocence. This is the second type-printing of Blake's poem, which
had been printed by Benjamin Heath Malkin in A
Father's Memoir of his Child in 1806. The Taylors may
have seen it there, but they may also have seen a copy of Blake's
Songs; G. E. Bentley, Jr., has argued that the engraving for
"The Charity Children" is modelled on Blake's plate. If
so, the engraver, probably Isaac Taylor the younger, must have seen
Blake's plate before 1814, when the engraving, but not Blake's poem,
appeared in City Scenes. In a diary entry of 1810, Henry Crabbe
Robinson recorded a conversation with Jane Taylor in which Blake was discussed.

73.

An Early Stage On The Road To Learning; Or,
Original Lessons, In Words Of One And Two Syllables Only,
Adapted to the Taste and Capacity Of Little Children.
With Vocabularies Of The Most Difficult Words,
And Recapitulary Lessons. London:
Printed For Darton, Harvey, And Darton,
Gracechurch-Street. 1819.
[Darton, Harvey, and Co. Printers].

Marbled boards, green sheep spine.

Lilly Library call number:
PE1119 .A1 E12 1819

An Evening In Autumn; Or, The Useful
Amusement. Intended For Children.
London: Printed For Harvey and
Darton, Gracechurch-Street. 1821. [Printed by Harvey,
Darton, and Co.].

Marbled boards, red leather spine, all edges sprinkled blue.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.9 .E93 1821

A speller and a story book incorporating questions and answers
("What is gold?") have been produced in a pleasing square
format with pretty bindings. The epigraph of An
Evening In Autumn is Edgeworthian: "We are disposed
to think favourably of any mode which unites amusement with instruction."

London Cries

A little black thing among the snow:
Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe!
Where are thy father & mother? say?
They are both gone up to the church to pray.

William Blake, "The Chimney Sweeper," Songs of Experience

The little books of street cries for children that began to appear in the
later eighteenth century reduced the already traditional representations of
street criers to simple stereotypes. The Newbery Cries of 1771 with its anti-Semitic verse for the old
clothes seller is typical in this respect, and by no means the most
immoderate. It is in the context of such representations, formative for the
children who encountered them, that the originality of some of the versions
of street cries with Darton imprints may be seen.

74.

[
Ann Taylor Gilbert
] and [
Jane Taylor
]. The New Cries Of London, With
Characteristic Engravings. London:
Printed And Sold By Darton And Harvey,
Gracechurch-Street. 1804.
[Darton and Harvey, Printers].

Lilly Library call number:
GT3450 .N532 1804

There are two instances of outcast criers in The
New Cries , the Jewish old clothes seller and the
climbing boys, their outcast status emphasized in the engravings by
hostile animals—a cat arching its back at the Jew, a dog snarling
at the sweeps. The commentary on the old clothes seller notes the
persistent and violent harassment of Jews on the streets, and
tenders him a qualified sympathy. The climbing boy is made the
subject of a cautionary tale about disobedient children; by
elaborating the psychological drama of the stolen child, the authors
have cast the climbing boy as a child like other children, punished
for his carelessness. In the circumstance, however, it is a vision
of damnation. William Darton may have suggested the format and
outlined the subjects for the book, first published in 1803, but he
is unlikely to have written about the climbing boy in this way.

75.

[Paul Sandby.
"Rare Mackarel" from Twelve
London Cries From The Life. London:
F. Vivarez And P. Sandby. 1760].

Lilly Library call number:
GT3450 .S213 L8

The dramatic confrontation between vendor and customers in Sandby's
"Rare Mackarel," extending even to the animals, may have
been a model for the engraving of the old clothes vendor in The New Cries. Sandby's designs set groups
of people against simply evoked backgrounds, a filling out of the
setting that is characteristic of the illustrations ofThe New Cries, which have been attributed to
the younger Isaac Taylor, perhaps with some assistance from his father.

76.

[Ann Taylor Gilbert] and
[Jane Taylor].
The New Cries Of London, With
Characteristic Engravings. Part II.
London: Printed For
Darton, Harvey, And Darton, Gracechurch-Street.
1812. [Printed by
Darton, Harvey, and Co.].

The second part of The New Cries was published in 1808, with a title
vignette modelled after Marcellus Laroon, in which children watch a
raree-show. One part of the spectacle, in the Taylors' verse
description, is topical:

Next comes Bonaparte, on a cream-colour'd
nag, With a sword in his hand, and his hair in a bag.

The new engravings are set four to a page; the chimney sweep, now a
single figure maneuvering against the wind, is reminiscent of
Blake's little sweep in Songs of
Experience. Instead of the snarling dog of the earlier
illustration, a companion animal goes with the child through the cold.

78.

[Ann Taylor Gilbert] and
[Jane Taylor].
City Scenes: Or, A Peep Into London,
For Good Children. By the Author of
Rural Scenes. London:
Printed For And Sold By Darton And Harvey,
Gracechurch-Street. Price Half-A-Crown.
1809. [Printed by W.
Darton, and J. and J. Harvey]. On page 48 after section 67,
"The Charity School," is an earlier printer's imprint,
"The End. Printed by Darton and Harvey, Gracechurch-Street."

City Scenes evolved from a cries-type
description of London as a city of thieves into a middle class guide book:

See where the idle milk-maid stands,
To hear the gossip's tale;
While chimney-sweep, with uplift hands,
Keeps drinking from the pail.
And even while the man behind,
The sooty thief is showing,
If he could look at top, he'd find,
His muffins too were going.

These lines, and the description of "The thief that picks one's
pocket clean," are omitted from later editions, in which London
becomes a safer place, and less colorful. The engravings are by
Isaac Taylor the younger. Joseph Farington noted in his diary in
1805 that a London master sweep gained £40 to
£50 a year from a climbing boy's labor, and that the total
amount of soot sold annually in the city was worth
£50,000. Many of the boys (and some girls) who were forced
to act as human brushes lived in a condition little removed from
slavery. The May Day revelry of the "Chimney-sweeper's
dance" was eliminated from later editions of City Scenes.

London Cries is a shared imprint of
Darton and Harvey and William Darton the younger in his early years
at 40 Holborn Hill. Later editions were published only from Holborn
Hill. The title page opening is a remarkable composition for a
children's book of the period: the old clothes seller faces the
crossing sweeper, and in the engraved verse he seems to address the
child, and, by implication, the child reader.

80.

Although William Darton the elder may have written some of the text
for London Cries, the book was taken over by his sons, perhaps
because William the younger or Thomas, or both, had worked on the engravings.

81.

Letters, Written From London, Descriptive Of
Various Scenes And Occurrences Frequently met with in the
Metropolis And Its Vicinity. For the
Amusement of Children. Illustrated By Plates.
London: Printed For Darton And
Harvey, No. 55, Gracechurch-Street. By W. Darton and J. and J.
Harvey. 1807. Price One Shilling.

Buff printed and decorated wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
DA683 .L65 1807

In 1803, the Society for Superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys
gave a prize of forty guineas to George Smart for his invention of a
successful chimney-sweeping machine, a round brush attached to a
series of hollow sticks that could brush a nine-by-fourteen-inch
flue. Three-quarters of London's chimneys could have been cleaned
with it, replacing the climbing children. The device is demonstrated
in the engraving, as a climbing boy watches. Darton imprints
continued to figure in the long crusade. In 1825, an expanded second
edition, in parts, of James Montgomery'sThe
Chimney-Sweeper's Friend, And Climbing-Boy's Album, bore
a Harvey and Darton imprint; part 5 contained The
Chimney-Sweeper from Blake's Songs of
Innocence. In 1840 a bill was introduced to prohibit the use
of climbing children; it was 1875 before regulations were enforced.

Original Poems, Before and After

London, 1st 6 mo. 1803

Isaac Taylor. Respected Friend,

We have received some pieces of poetry from some branches of thy
family for the Minor's Pocket Book,
and we beg that the enclosed trifles may be divided among such
as are most likely to be pleased with them. My principal reason
for writing now is to request that when any of their harps be
tuned and their muse in good humour; if they could give me some
specimens of easy poetry for young children, I would endeavour
to make a suitable return in cash, or in books. If something in
the way of moral songs (though not songs), or short tales turned
into verse, or—but I need not dictate. What would be most likely
to please little minds must be well known to everyone of those
who have written such pieces as we have already seen from thy
family. Such pieces as are short, for little children would be preferred.

For self and partner, very respectfully,

DARTON AND HARVEY.

William Darton, quoted in Ann Taylor Gilbert's Autobiography

In 1803, William Darton, on behalf of the firm, wished to assemble a book of
poems written especially for children. The book Darton and Harvey published
contained poems "By Several Young Persons," and there is no reason
to think that any other kind of book had been intended. In a well-known
passage in herAutobiography, Ann Taylor Gilbert
expressed disappointment that poems by "a Miss O'Keeffe, a lady whose
father had written for the stage," were included, because the Taylors
felt they had "written to order." Darton, however, had asked for
"some specimens of easy poetry," not for a separate book, and it
seems likely that the seventeen poems by Adelaide O'Keeffe and the fable by
the young Quaker poet Bernard Barton were also specially commissioned. A
similar commission must have gone out for the second volume, in which
sixteen more of O'Keeffe's poems appear. A reader fortunate enough to be
able to read the books through in their original form, not in the often
ill-conceived and increasingly genteel revisions of the later editions, is
struck by the modulating tone and rhythms of the individual poems, which
combine to create a satisfying whole. The compiler of the work, who must
have been William Darton himself, should have some of the credit for its
success as a work of art.

82.

The Bee, a Selection of Poetry from the best
Authors. A New Edition.
London: Printed & Sold by
Darton & Harvey, Gracechurch Street. 1793. [engraved title-page].

Bound in sheep.

Lilly Library call number:
PR1171 .B295 1793

The Bee was published in 1788 by W.
Chalklen, and taken over shortly after the formation of Darton and
Harvey in 1791. The preface indicates that the selection has been
made with children in mind. Later editions altered the designation
"the best authors" to "approved authors," but
Helen Maria Williams, no longer "approved" after the
Revolutionary years, retained her place.

William Darton's interest in a poetry collection for children would
have intensified with the success of this anthology put together by
Mrs. Barbauld's twenty-year-old niece Lucy Aikin. Among the poems
are some of her own, Mrs. Barbauld's "The Mouse's
Petition," and Southey's recently published "The Old Man's
Comforts, And How He Gained Them," better known through
Carroll's parody, "You are old, father William."

In the Dissenting tradition of children's poetry Isaac Watts holds
the prominent place, and it is that poetic tradition William Darton
personally enriched when he solicited and printed the poetry of Ann
and Jane Taylor. Dr. Johnson wrote that Watts was "one of the
first authors that taught the Dissenters to court attention by the
graces of language." It was Watts's later "Moral
Songs," nine of which are included here, which Mrs. Barbauld
was attempting to imitate in herHymns in
Prose; in his letter to the Taylor family, William Darton
was requesting something like the "songs" in this section.

85.

John Oakman,
and Others. Moral Songs, For The
Instruction And Amusement Of Children;
Intended As A Companion To Dr. Watts's Divine Songs.
By John Oakman, and Others. London:
Printed And Sold By Darton And Harvey,
Gracechurch-Street. 1802.
Price Sixpence. [London, Printed by Darton and Harvey].

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .O124 M8 1802

Among the poems by "others" is Thomas Foxton's
"Dangers of Mispending Time," an imitation of Watts from
hisMoral Songs Composed For The Use Of
Children, 1728, which had appeared in a later collection
with wood engravings by Thomas Bewick. Oakman himself was a secular
writer of some wit and notoriety. The book includes two imitations
of Watts's "The Sluggard," one beginning "Twas the
voice of the glutton/I heard him declare," looking forward to
Lewis Carroll's "Twas the voice of the lobster." In making
up this volume not long before a letter went out to the Taylor
family requesting "moral songs, but not songs," William
Darton may have been thinking of marketing other poetry collections
made up from several hands.

86.

[Ann Taylor Gilbert]
and [Adelaide O'Keeffe] and
[Jane Taylor].
Original Poems, For Infant Minds, By
Several Young Persons. Vol. I.
Fifth Edition. London:
Printed For Darton And Harvey, Gracechurch-Street;
Sold also by T. Conder, Bucklersbury. 1806. Price Eighteen-pence.
[Printed by W. Darton, and J. and J. Harvey].

Marbled boards, green leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .T273 O69 1806

A copyright indenture of 1818 shows that in addition to the young
Bernard Barton, the "Several Young Persons" included the
(not young) Reverend Isaac Taylor and his son Isaac, who contributed
three poems each to the two volumes. The book had reached a fifth
edition in two years. The frontispiece dated "Aug.t 22.d
1805," re-engraved by Isaac Taylor the younger, illustrates Ann
Taylor's poem, "A True Story," about Little Ann, her
mother, and the beggar girl. This volume introduced Ann Taylor's
"My Mother," and her memorable "The Churchyard":

You are not so healthy and gay,
So young, and so active, and bright,
That death cannot snatch you away,
Or some dreadful accident smite.

This is the first edition of the second volume, commissioned in
November 1804, after the stunning success of the first. It contains
Ann Taylor's "The Vulgar Little Lady" and "Meddlesome
Matty," and Jane Taylor's "The Cow and the Ass,"
which a reviewer compared favorably to a La Fontaine

fable. The volume sounds its major theme of contentment
with class status beginning with the opening poem, a portrait of an
indomitable little girl selling turnip tops to support her family,
and ending with Jane Taylor's "The Village Green":
"Then, contented with my state,/Let me envy not the great."

In the first American illustrated edition, the artist did not scruple
to show the "Little Fisherman" suspended from the
meathook. Original Poems was an immediate success, but it was never
without its critics. Although influenced by the cautionary tales in
verse, Sara Coleridge, the author of "January brings the
snow," a poem which achieved a status of its own in the
nursery, wrote: "The Original Poems give too many pictures of
mental depravity, bodily torture, and of adult sorrow; and I think
the sentiments—the tirades, for instance, against hunting, fishing,
shooting—are morbid, and partially false."

By the Authors of "Original Poems"

"You laugh, my good friends, yet we're all of one trade,
'Tis but by exchange that all fortunes are made;
Or shells, or estates, set to sale.
The soldier his blood sells, the poet his brains,
The doctor sells health, and the brewer his grains,
The best bidder still must prevail.

Adelaide O'Keeffe, "The Nautilus," A
Trip to the Coast

89.

[Ann Taylor Gilbert] and
[Jane Taylor].
Select Rhymes For The Nursery, With
Copperplate Engravings. London:
Printed By And For Darton and Harvey Gracechurch
Street. 1808. [Price One Shilling.]
[Printed by W. Darton, and J. and J. Harvey].

Buff printed and decorated wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
PR5549 .T2 R5 1808

Rhymes For The Nursery, 1806, contained
only poems by the Taylor sisters; there are many cautionary tales in
verse, including Ann Taylor's "Playing with fire," but the
poem that became a classic is Jane Taylor's "The Star."
This illustrated selection first appeared in the same year, omitting
Jane Taylor's "The Poor Little Baby," beginning
"Down, down in the pit-hole poor baby is gone,/The cold earth
did rattle its coffin upon."

The Taylor sisters were part of an affectionate family closely
touched by death. Death is already a presence in Original Poems, For Infant Minds, as it was
in the lives of children of the time. The hymns in imitation of Dr.
Watts written by Ann and Jane Taylor are somber works; although
Christian hymns are a genre for singing of death, surely there are
few books so obsessed with the pain and physical disintegration of
the child as this one. Watts saw a grandeur in death since it opened
the door to decisive judgment. In the Taylors' death poems, the
stern oratory that shapes Watts's "A thousand Children young as
I/ Are call'd by Death to hear their Doom" decays into Gothic
sentimentality. The frontispiece was "Drawn by Isaac Taylor
Jun.r" and "Engraved by Ann Taylor," a rare signed
example of Ann Taylor's work. The scene dramatizes the peculiar
relishing of guilt in the poem "A Child's Lamentation For The
Death Of A Dear Mother."

This 1825 American edition has a charming Garden of Eden scene on its
paper wrapper. D'Alté Welch found that Hymns For Infant Minds was the most widely
published children's book in the United States in the nineteenth
century. It is a sobering thought.

92.

Jane Taylor.
Manuscript letter, dated "Rotherham August 8.th 1816."

Lilly Library:
Rawson mss.

In a letter to "My dear Father and Mother," Isaac and Ann
Martin Taylor, from Rotherham where she and her brother Isaac were
visiting their sister Ann Taylor Gilbert, Jane Taylor refers to her
father's lectures:

Upon inquiry we find that we shall not get into Town in time to
reach Ongar on Wednesday night. I shall therefore write to Martin
hoping he can get beds for us. We therefore shall not be with you
till Thursday evening which we are very sorry for on account of its
being lecture night.

The imprint is shared by the Gracechurch Street and Holborn Hill
firms in this late edition of the children's periodical and diary;
the frontispiece is a scene from an account of a Native American
tribe. The Opie Collection in the Bodleian Library contains a unique
copy of The Minor's Pocket Book For The Year 1791," published
1790, with the imprint "Printed for the proprietors and Sold by
Wm. Darton & Co. Gracechurch Street and by Champante
& Wittrow [sic] Aldgate." The poems sent by the Taylor
teenagers to the yearly competitions brought them to the attention
of Darton and Harvey. "It was the purchase, accidental, shall I
say? of the pocket book for 1798 that gave direction, and I hope
usefulness to our lives," wrote Ann Taylor Gilbert in her
Autobiography.

94.

Kate Greenaway.
Pen, ink and watercolor drawing.

Lilly Library:
Art mss.

The drawing illustrates "The Little Cripple's Complaint,"
Ann Taylor's poem from the second volume of Original Poems; it was made for Little Ann and Other Poems, 1883, in which
it was color printed by Edmund Evans.

95.

John O'Keef[f]e.
Wild Oats: Or, The Strolling Gentleman.
A Comedy, In Five Acts, As
Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent-Garden. By John O'Keefe
[sic], Esq. Dublin:
Printed For The Booksellers. 1791.

Lilly Library call number:
PR3605 .O36 W6 1792

Adelaide O'Keeffe, the other principal author of Original Poems, was the daughter of the
Irish Catholic comic dramatist, whom Hazlitt called "the
English Molière."Wild Oats,
1791, performed twenty-nine times in its first two seasons, was
acted into the nineteenth century and revived by the Royal
Shakespeare Company in 1976. After its successful opening, O'Keeffe
spent a long summer holiday with his son and daughter Adelaide, on
the Dorset coast, during which fourteen-year-old Adelaide was
"reading her favourite, Miss Burney's 'Cecilia." ' In
Adelaide O'Keeffe's National Characters,
the Irish Officer praises the native songs brought to the stage by
"O'Keeffe's wild genius, claiming smile and tear."

96.

[Adelaide O'Keeffe].
Beasts, Birds And Fishes. From
Original Poems With Pictures For Children.
London. Printed for Darton, Harvey
& Darton, Gracechurch Street, and Published as the Act directs
Nov.r 1.1813.

Both text and illustrations are engraved in this picture book of
O'Keeffe's best-known poem, from the second volume of
Original Poems, For Infant Minds, which Indiana
children still recited in the second part of this century:

The Dog will come when he is call'd,
The Cat will walk away,
The Monkey's cheek is very bald.
The Goat is fond of play.

97.

[Adelaide O'Keeffe].
Old Grand-Papa, And Other Poems, For
The Amusement Of Children. By a Young
Lady. Embellished with Copper-plates.
London: Printed For Darton, Harvey,
and Darton, No. 55, Gracechurch-Street.
1812. Price One Shilling.
[Printed by Darton, Harvey, and Co.].

Buff printed and decorated wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .Y73

The accelerating reorganization of the field system after 1809 must
have created many scenes of the kind O'Keeffe describes, but they
are generally not subjects for children's poetry. In the poem
"Cottage Fuel," the kindly squire dismisses his hired
manager for abusing a boy gathering wood, who is asserting an
ancient right of the commons before enclosure. The opening of the
poem is of great interest, for in describing the security his
benevolence has gained for him, the squire describes the measures
being taken by his neighbors to keep the poor from penetrating their
domain: "No prowling mastiff is let loose to watch them;/ No
spring-gun charg'd; here no man-trap is set." It is not a good
poem, but it is certainly a good subject.

The English national character is represented by "The English
Banker," which shrewdly lays out the program for bourgeois
success—the accumulation of and zealous guarding of capital
("But root and trunk I keep with me"); a five thousand
pound start for each son; pious, fair daughters "well
portioned"; a wife who desires an estate; the move to a
suburban setting with tenants to be managed morally ("No
fighting Cocks—no boxing match"); and the newly ritualized
twice-yearly holiday feasts for the family. In 1818, Darton, Harvey,
and Darton negotiated a new fourteen-year copyright agreement for
Original Poems, For Infant Minds with
the Taylor family, which secured each of the sisters around
£600. No financial agreement was made with O'Keeffe,
apparently, who in later years was told by the Gracechurch Street
firm to direct her inquiries to the Taylor family. Perhaps as a
compensatory gesture, in 1818, O'Keeffe's National Characters acknowledges her
connection with Original Poems; or
perhaps in this case O'Keeffe persuaded the Lymington printer to
mention this along with her adult novels, and to list them on a leaf
at the back of the book. After 1818, the Gracechurch Street firm
began to associate her with Original
Poems in its advertising.

99.

[Adelaide] O'Keef[f]e.
A Trip To The Coast; Or, Poems
Descriptive of Various Interesting Objects On The
Sea-Shore. By Miss O'Keefe [sic], Author
of some Pieces in "Original Poems for Infant Minds,"
signed Adelaide. London:
Printed For Darton, Harvey, And Darton,
Gracechurch-Street. 1819.
[Darton, Harvey, and Co. Printers].

Marbled boards, red leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .O41 T83

Interconnected narrative poems develop the characters of a
"rich" family on holiday and the nature of day-to-day life
at a seaside resort. The work creates an intimacy from observed
detail lacking in all of O'Keeffe's other works. In these poems the
author seems to be writing of scenes she cared for and of people she
knew. A little girl is asked to recite her "favorite
poem," which turns out to be Jane Taylor's "Morning
Hymn" from Original Poems. In
"Young Jack, the Sailor-Boy," a drowned child is revived
by the local Humane Society.

My Mother

Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My Mother.

Ann Taylor Gilbert, "My Mother," Original Poems, For Infant Minds

No other poem of the period had the resonance of Ann Taylor Gilbert's
"My Mother," published fifteen years before the birth of Victoria,
and many years before the milestone of women's rights, the Infant Custody
Act of 1839, which for the first time gave a mother the right of custody of
her child under the age of seven, if the Lord Chancellor agreed to it, and
if she was of good character. Although "My Mother" touched off an
avalanche of imitations, including a parody by Byron, its crucial place in
the emotional life of nineteenth-century England should not be
underestimated. The poem had touched a chord in people coping with the
emerging redefinition of the mother's role in family life. The poem
perfectly captured the new stress on the bond between a mother and her
child, the step-by-step aspects of proper childrearing, and the
sentimentalization of infancy. It is an important social document.

100.

William Hayley.
The Life, And Posthumous Writings, Of
William Cowper, Esqr. With An
Introductory Letter To The Right Honourable Earl Cowper. By
William Hayley, Esqr. Vol. II.
Chichester: Printed By J. Seagrave;
For J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church-Yard, London.
1803.

Half calf with green boards.

Lilly Library call number:
PR3383 .H4 vol. 2

Ann Taylor modelled her poem on a lyric by William Cowper, the
pre-eminent poet of the domestic. Cowper wrote "My Mary"
in 1793 when his companion Mary Unwin was in failing health; it was
published posthumously in William Hayley's biography of Cowper in
1803, just in time to provide the model for "My Mother."
Hayley's biography falsified Cowper's relation to Mary Unwin, and in
the context of the biography the poem read like a tribute to an aged
mother. Responding to this strange situation, Ann Taylor produced
the poem that Hayley thought Cowper had written in the first place.
The frontispiece portrait of Cowper is engraved by William Blake
after Thomas Lawrence.

The unhappy Cowper's association with domestic happiness dominates
this miniature biographical sketch: "Oh, what a happy thing it
is to have a good mother!"

102.

[Ann Taylor Gilbert].
My Mother. A Poem. Embellished with Designs. By A Lady. Engraved by P.
W. Tomkins, Engraver to Her Majesty.
Published by P. W. Tomkins, No. 53, New Bond Street,
by permission of Darton & Harvey, from their Selection
of Original Poems. [1807].

Printed on tobacco-colored paper.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .T24 M98

Lady Hamilton is said to have been the model for the mother in this
authorized separate printing of the poem, illustrated by a pupil of
Bartolozzi. Christine Duff Stewart found that Isaac Taylor the
younger had made sketches for the poem, which do not appear to have
been used for any contemporary edition; fittingly, one of Taylor's
designs was used to illustrate an excerpt from Hannah More's Coelebs In Search Of A Wife in The Minor's Pocket Book in 1810. "My
Mother" and More's Coelebs are
impressively influential articulations of the new conception of wife
and mother as a profession. Cowper's poem "My Mary" and
Taylor's "My Mother" moved on parallel paths into the
Victorian consciousness. Tennyson's emotional response to Cowper's
poem was so intense

that he could not read it aloud, finding it
"too pathetic" (in the sense of exciting pathos). What
must have been the Poet Laureate's response, if he heard of it, when
he was publicly called upon to revise the last stanza of "My
Mother" by the mathematician Augustus de Morgan, who ranked Ann
Taylor Gilbert's poem as "One of the most beautiful lyrics in
the English language, or any other language."

103.

[Ann Taylor Gilbert].
My Mother, A Poem.
New York: Printed And Sold By
Mahlon Day, At The New Juvenile Book-Store, No. 376,
Pearl-street. 1833.

Yellow printed and illustrated wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .T24 M98 1833

"My Mother" is printed with Isaac Watts's "The Cradle
Hymn" in this New York edition; the publisher Mahlon Day also
issued a series of "My Mother" imitations.

104.

Louisa Brown.
Historical Questions On The Kings Of
England, In Verse. Calculated To Fix
On The Minds Of Children, Some Of The Most Striking Events Of
Each Reign. By Louisa Brown, Authoress of "The Mythology in Verse."
London: Printed For Darton, Harvey,
And Darton, Gracechurch-Street. 1815. [Darton, Harvey, and Co. Printers].

Buff printed and decorated wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
DA28.1 .B87 H67 1815

The Cowper-Taylor verse form is used to teach the succession of the sovereigns:

And whose domestic virtues shine,
With brightest lustre, and combine
To make him lov'd by all his line?
George the Third.

The most active producer of "My Mother" imitations was
William Darton the younger of Holbom Hill, many of them written by
his prolific author, Mary Belson Elliott. Grateful Tributes includes poems to "My
Mother," "My Father," "My Sister," "My
Brother," and "My Mammy," some of which were also
published separately as picture sheets, picture books, and jigsaw
puzzles, and widely copied in the United States.

Antislavery

Not content with enslaving the parents, they retain their
children's children in perpetual slavery.

William Darton, Little Truths Better Than Great Fables

Antislavery publications, many of them addressed to children, issued from the
firm at Gracechurch Street throughout the years of agitation, first for the
abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire, achieved in 1807; then
for the abolition of slavery in the Empire, not achieved until 1833; then as
part of the agitation to free enslaved people in the United States, achieved
only in 1863. The children's books published by Samuel Darton in association
with Joseph Harvey in the mid-1820s are of special interest.

The section "The Golden Rule" illustrated by an engraving
of an English child offering a Bible to an African child is an apt
expression of the evangelical motive behind much of the antislavery
agitation of the time.

107.

Familiar Lessons For Children, Intended As An
Early Introduction To Useful Knowledge.
London: Printed By And For Darton
And Harvey, Gracechurch-Street. 1806. Price One Shilling.
[Printed by Darton and Harvey].

Printed and decorated buff wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
PE1119 .A1 F19 1806

Passages condemning slavery incidental to descriptions of the
production of sugar occur in many Darton imprints. In Familiar Lessons, two black men are shown
operating a cane press. The author states that "The motive to
which these lessons are owing, originated in finding those
of Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs.
Wollstonecraft too frequently formed on the particular
circumstances of the children for whom they were composed; which
appeared to render them, in many instances, inapplicable as lessons
for others."

108.

A New And Entertaining Alphabet, For Young
Children, Where Some Instruction May Be Gained, And Much
Amusement. London: Printed
By W. Darton, Jun., 58, Holborn Hill. 1813.

Peach printed and illustrated
wrappers bound in.

Lilly Library call number:
GR486 .N53 1813

The letter N is illustrated by "Negro," with a wood
engraving of a man seated with a rake; the verses protest slavery. O
is a fine spreading oak tree, in which Charles II is hiding.

109.

William Cowper.
The Negro's Complaint: A Poem. To
Which Is Added, Pity For Poor Africans. By William Cowper.
London: Printed For Harvey And
Darton, Gracechurch-Street. 1826. [Harvey, Darton, and Co. Printers].

This is the first separate edition of Cowper's impressive antislavery
ballad, which since its appearance in 1788 had been circulated and
sung on the streets. The Cornell University Library copy has been
annotated by a reader with biblical citations, written in ink above
the hand-colored wood engravings. The second poem "Pity For
Poor Africans," also dating from 1788, satirizes those who
"shared in the plunder, but pitied the man."

Amelia Alderson Opie was a popular poet and novelist, author of a
novel based on the career of Mary Wollstonecraft. She married the
Romantic painter John Opie. A close friend of the Gurney family, she
became a convinced Quaker in 1825, and renounced writing fiction. In
The First Chapter of Accidents,
William Darton included Opie's most popular poem, "The Orphan
Boy," from Poems, 1802. "The
Negro Boy's Tale" is from the same volume. For this reprinting,
Opie has added a preface addressed to children. The frontispiece is
engraved on copper. Lawrence Darton's copy is inscribed "To
Mary Lister from her friend Amelia Opie, Norwich, 2nd mo. 2nd. 1826."

111.

Amelia Alderson Opie. The Black Man's Lament; Or, How to
Make Sugar. By Amelia Opie.
London: Printed For Harvey And
Darton, Gracechurch-Street. 1826. [Printed by Harvey, Darton, and Co.].

Rose printed and illustrated paper wrappers bound in.

Lilly Library call number:
TP377 .O61 B62 1826

Opie wrote this poem for children as part of the swelling antislavery
agitation preceding the abolition of slavery in the British Empire
in 1833. One of the hand-colored wood engravings shows the interior
of a slave ship packed for the middle passage. Other antislavery
books published by Harvey and Darton are advertised on the back
cover of The Black Man's Lament,
including an important American slave narrative, A Narrative of Some Remarkable Incidents in the Life
of Solomon Bayley. Amelia Alderson Opie was a Norwich
delegate to the World's Antislavery Convention of 1840 in London.
The convention refused to seat the women of the American delegation,
including Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a historic event
which transferred some of the passion of the antislavery movement to
the movement for women's rights.

112.

The Ship That Jack Built, Being The Curious
History Of Poor Black Sambo, The African, Who Was Stolen From
His Home And Sold For A Slave In Jamaica.
London: William Darton, Holborn
Hill; T. Hughes, Ludgate Street; And J. And C.
Evans. [1828].

Marbled wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
HT1165 .S55 1821

An abolitionist rhyme on the cumulative principle of The House that
Jack Built had first appeared in 1800. The effective wood engravings
include a portrait of William Wilberforce, the Evangelical crusader
against the slave trade, to whom the work is dedicated.

113.

Moses Roper.
A Narrative Of The Adventures And
Escape Of Moses Roper From American Slavery;
With A Preface, By The Rev.T. Price, D. D.
Fourth Edition. London:
Harvey And Darton, 55, Gracechurch Street. To be had
also of G. Wightman, 24 Paternoster Row; William Ball, Aldine
Chambers, Paternoster Row; and at the British And Foreign
Anti-Slavery Office, 27, New Broad Street. 1840. [Johnston &
Barrett, Printers, 13, Mark Lane].

Brown cloth. Loaned by Mr. Lawrence Darton.

This is the fourth edition of one of the most remarkable narratives
of the era, first published in 1837. The engraved frontispiece is a
portrait of Moses Roper. This is not a children's book, but many
children, especially in the households of Friends, read it. As
William Andrews has shown, Moses Roper has used the biblical story
of Joseph and his brothers to structure his account of exploitation
and deceit. The epigraph is from Cowper's The
Negro's Complaint.

A Geographical Panorama

The praise bestowed by Dr. Johnson on Mrs. Barbauld's little
books for children, is a proof that he did not entirely believe his
own assertion, that, "babies do not want to hear about
babies." How far the supernatural tales that delighted his
infant ear, had a tendency to check the progress of his vigorous
mind, by shading it with the gloom of superstition, this is not the
place to inquire.

Maria Barton Hack, Preface toWinter Evenings

Interesting questions about the nature of imaginative response are raised by
the determined attempts to replace fantasy with adventures founded on fact.
Books of this type, based on travels and voyages, were prominent in the
Gracechurch Street list during the 1820s. Some of these adventures were
fantastic enough in themselves, and once made up into little books with
beautifully produced pictures, it is hard to see how a child's imagination
could be adequately constrained. The wonderful frontispieces to Maria
Hack'sWinter Evenings must have excited some
of the same narrative impulses released in viewers of Bewick's vignettes,
and scenes based on real life in Lapland could not make a toy theatre less
sensation-pleasing. It is interesting that Hack, for all her determination
to substitute tales of Arabian travellers for the fantasies of Arabian
Nights, chooses an epigraph for Winter Evenings
from Mark Akenside's The Pleasures of the
Imagination, 1744, in which "prodigious things" bring
"astonishment" and the unknown excites "sprightly joy," as

By night
The village-matron, round the blazing hearth,
Suspends the infant audience with her tales.

114.

Travel among Friends in England often meant from one Friend's house
to another, as described in this charming rebus letter from the
young Maria Barton Hack to her cousin. It is endorsed on the back by
Lucy Fitzgerald, who was the daughter of Bernard Barton and the wife
of Edward Fitzgerald, the translator ofThe Rubáiyát:

This letter was written by my Aunt, Maria Hack (when she was a
girl) the authoress of 'Grecian Stories'—'English Stories'—'Winter
Evenings' &c &c—She was my father's eldest sister.
[sgd:] Lucy Fitzgerald.

The frontispiece, signed "E. B. H. del.," was drawn by
Maria Hack's daughter, Elizabeth Barton Hack, and represents the
"Death of a Traveller in the Desert," a scene from the
section "A Journey Across the Desert of Arabia," based on
J. Griffiths' Travels in Europe, Asia Minor, and
Arabia , 1805; little Marianne drinks from a bowl of water
as her father is supported in the background: "Some of the
Arabs kindly held up a part of the tent, to shelter the dying man
from the scorching rays of the sun."

116.

A Geographical Panorama Exhibiting characteristic
representations of the Scenery and Inhabitants Of Various
Regions. London: Published
By Harvey & Darton, 55, Gracechurch St.
May 20th. 1822.

Nine aquatint engravings of different parts of the world form
backgrounds for smaller scenes and cut-out figures, which fit into
the grooved side of the lid. Two mahogany pillars combine with
shaped gray cards to form the theatre front. Instructions for
setting up the scenes were given in a descriptive booklet. The Geographical Panorama was attributed to
Maria Hack in Joseph Smith's Descriptive
Catalogue of Friends' Books. Possibly she wrote the
explanatory booklet, and her daughter, Elizabeth Barton Hack, who
designed the illustrations for Winter
Evenings, drew the scenes. One of the cutouts is a desert
scene identical to the frontispiece of the first volume of Winter Evenings, forming part of a scene
described thus:

The place of the camel may now be filled by a group of
travellers, one of whom supported by a friend, is expiring from the
effects of the simoon, or stifling wind of the desert. The little
girl is the daughter of the dying man: she survived the dangers of
the journey, and was restored to her mother. The story is related in
the first vol. of "Winter Evenings."

117.

Emily Taylor.
Letters To A Child, On The Subject Of
Maritime Discovery. By Emily Taylor.
London: Printed For
Harvey And Darton, Gracechurch-Street. 1820. [Printed by Harvey, Darton, & Co.].

Marbled boards, red leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
G175 .T238 L65 1820

"Arrival of Columbus on the Shores of America &
astonishment of the Natives" is represented by tiny figures on
the hillside watching the approach of ships in the harbor. Emily
Taylor wrote several books for the Gracechurch Street firm, into the
1840s. Her brother was Edgar Taylor, the English translator of the
Grimms, whose two volume German Popular
Stories was published 1823-26.

118.

[R. Clarke].
A Tour To Great St. Bernard's And
Round Mont Blanc. With Descriptions
Copied From A Journal Kept By The Author; And Drawings Taken
From Nature. Intended for young Persons from ten to fourteen
Years of Age. London:
Printed For Harvey And Darton,
Gracechurch-Street. 1827. [Some
plates dated 1828]
[Printed by Harvey, Darton, and Co.].

A map, designed and engraved by Gardner, shows "the Country
round Great St. Bernard and Mount Blanc, with the Route of the
Tourists." This book imitates for children the popular format
of adult books on the "Tour," the word "Tourist"
being a recent coinage. The marks of Napoleon appear throughout; at
Isola Bella, the narrator sees "a very large laurel-tree … on
which Buonaparte had cut the word 'Battaglia' with his knife."

119.

[Catherine Parr Strickland Traill].
The Young Emigrants; Or, Pictures Of
Canada. Calculated To Amuse And Instruct
The Minds Of Youth. By The Author Of "Prejudice
Reproved," "The Tell-tale," &c.
London: Printed For Harvey And
Darton, Gracechurch-Street. 1826. [Harvey, Darton, & Co. Printers].

The first attempt to describe Canada to English-speaking children was
based on written sources, by a writer who six years later emigrated
there and wrote one of the early masterpieces of Canadian
literature, The Backwoods of Canada. The
children's book in 1826 presents an idyllic view of the crossing and
the family's first view of Montreal. When the author actually
arrived, in 1832, cholera was raging and her first-hand view of
Montreal, "a place of which travellers had said so much,"
was stark:

I could compare it only to the fruits of the Dead sea, which are
said to be fair and tempting to look upon, but yield only ashes and
bitterness when tasted by the thirsty traveller.

Another Strickland sister, Susannah Strickland Moodie, also
emigrated to Canada, and wrote the classic Roughing It In The Bush.

The Classification of All

I cannot dismiss this genus without mentioning the
Curculio imperialis, or Diamond Beetle. It is a native
of Brazil: the ground colour of the wing-sheaths is coal-black, but
they are beset with many rows of sparkling spots, of a gold green,
which, when magnified, display the varying lustre of the most
brilliant gems. This appearance is produced by innumerable minute
scales, so polished and united, as to reflect the prismatic colours
in this lively manner.

Priscilla Wakefield, Introduction To The
Natural History And Classification Of Insects

The impulse toward classification in late eighteenth-century European thought
expressed itself in the great works of Buffon and Linnaeus, and soon
appeared in works for children on natural history. Priscilla Wakefield's
pioneering work on botany, written in the form of letters between two girls,
served as an entry point into scientific subjects, although this
breakthrough was modified by some books written for girls that suppressed
the details of botanical reproduction. Books describing "people of all
nations" reflected an emergent ethnology that linked elements of
classification such as race, color, and origin to temperament, character,
and types, tending toward definitions in which types took on a particular
character and moral and physiological characteristics would be linked.

121.

People Of All Nations; An Useful Toy For Girl Or
Boy. Philadelphia. Published
by Jacob Johnson, No. 147, Market-street. 1807. [Whitehall: Printed by A. Dickinson].

The American Quaker publisher has copied William Darton's miniature
book from the Infants Own Book-Case, with
its remarkably tactful text. Even when in error, the author's
distinctive opposition to stereotypes is apparent:

An Orang-Outang is a wild man of the woods, in the East Indies.
He sleeps under trees, and builds himself a hut; he cannot speak,
but when the natives make a fire in the woods, he will come to warm himself.

122.

[Mary Anne Venning].
A Geographical Present; Being
Descriptions Of The Principal Countries Of The World; With
Representations Of The Various Inhabitants In Their Respective
Costumes, Beautifully Colored.
London: Printed For Darton, Harvey,
And Darton, Gracechurch-Street. 1817. [Darton, Harvey, and Co. Printers].

Buff boards, red leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
G125 .V46 G3

The Dutch have "slow, phlegmatic dispositions," while the
Germans are "a frank, honest, hospitable people"; the
European is "generally strong, active, and intelligent."
Of people of color, the Tahitians who welcomed Captain Cook are seen
to have pleasing physical characteristics and are said to dress like
the ancient Greeks.

123.

The Little Enquirer; Or, Instructive
Conversations For Children From Five To Six Years Of
Age. London: Printed For
Harvey And Darton, Gracechurch Street. 1830. [Joseph Rickerby, Printer, 3, Sherbourne Lane].

Marbled boards, green spine.

Lilly Library call number:
GT85 .L77 1830

Skillfully colored stipple engravings on copper provide illustrations
of great dignity, much superior to the feeble text. The double page
opening shows "A Dutch Peasant and A Dutch Fish Woman."

Priscilla Bell Wakefield.
An Introduction To Botany, In A Series
Of Familiar Letters, With Illustrative Engravings.
By Priscilla Wakefield, Author of Mental
Improvement, Leisure Hours, &c. The
Fifth Edition. London:
Printed by and for Darton and Harvey,
Gracechurch-Street Also For Vernor And Hood, Poultry; J. Walker,
Paternoster-Row; And J. Harris, St. Paul's
Church-Yard. 1807.
[Printed by W. Darton, & J. & J. Harvey].

Tree calf, spine decorated in gold, edges stained yellow.

Lilly Library call number:
QK49 .W14 I6 1807

Priscilla Bell Wakefield.
Introduction To The Natural History
And Classification Of Insects, In A Series Of Familiar
Letters. With Illustrative Engravings. By
Priscilla Wakefield. London:
Printed For Darton, Harvey, And Darton, 55,
Gracechurch-Street. 1816.
[Printed by Darton, Harvey, and Co.].

Gray boards, brown leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
QL467 .W23

Priscilla Wakefield's natural history books assume with Mrs. Barbauld
that Nature implies the Creator. "The visible world,"
Wakefield wrote, "presents a scene of novelty and
delight," capable of "imprinting, in indelible characters,
the existence of a Supreme First Cause." The impressive plates
could be used as models for sketching: "Get your pencils and
paints in order," Felicia writes to Constance, so that "we
may compare our drawing-books together."

125.

[Benjamin Meggot Forster].
Botanical Illustrations Of The
Twenty-Four Classes In The Linnaean System Of Vegetables, By
Select Specimens Of English Plants.
London: Printed For Darton, Harvey,
And Darton, Gracechurch-Street. 1813. [Printed by Darton, Harvey, and Co.].

Red leather. Loaned by Miss Ruth E. Adomeit.

Lilly Library call number:
QK49 .B72 miniatures

A member of the committee of 1788 against the slave trade and an
advocate on behalf of children used as chimney sweeps, Forster was
an avid amateur botanist. In 1820, Harvey and Darton published his
work on fungi, "that much-neglected tribe of vegetables."

126.

[Mary Anne Venning].
Rudiments Of Conchology: Designed As
A Familiar Introduction To The Science, For The Use Of Young
Persons. With Explanatory Plates, And
References To The Collection Of Shells In The British Museum. By
The Author Of "The Geographical Present."
&c. London: Printed
For Harvey And Darton, Gracechurch-Street. 1826. [Harvey, Darton and Co. Printers].

Marbled boards, red leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
QL405.2 .V46 R91 1826

The author of the popular The Geographical
Present states that her intention is "to form a
comparison between the systems of Linnaeus and Lamarck, that may
prove familiar to the understanding of very young persons."

127.

[Sarah Waring].
A Sketch Of The Life Of
Linnaeus. In A Series Of Letters.
Designed For Young Persons. London:
Printed For Harvey And Darton,
Gracechurch-Street. 1827.
[Printed by Harvey, Darton, and Co.].

Marbled boards, red leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
QH44 .S727 1827

Observing the interest of his mother and sister in botany, Henry
mistakenly thinks that it is a girl's subject: to correct this
notion, his father writes to the young medical student, basing his
letters on Linnaeus's account of his tour of Lapland. The father
plans to read Bacon's essays with his daughter.

Benjamin Franklin

Trusting too much to others care is the ruin of many; for,
"In the affairs of this world, men are saved, not by faith, but
by the want of it."

Franklin's Way To Wealth

The Philadelphia inventor and statesman Benjamin Franklin was not a Quaker,
but he seemed in his time in France the embodiment of le bon
Quaker of the philosophes: the French police
reported that "this Quaker wears the full costume of his sect."
Franklin epitomized the energy, inventiveness, and calculating spirit of the
industrial middle class. Lindley Murray's Introduction To
The English Reader includes Franklin's story of "The
Whistle," demonstrating what an improvident seven-year-old could learn
about wise spending, a featured activity in children's books of the period.
Darton imprints include some fascinating presentations of Franklin to a
child audience.

Franklin's Way To Wealth is among the
younger William Darton's first productions for children. The text
was part of Poor Richard's Almanac for
1758, separately published in 1760 as "Father Abraham's
Speech." The engraved illustrations show idle workers at the
establishments of "W. RESTLESS" and "J. ABSENT."
This copy has been bound with a later book list in a wrapper with
the W. and T. Darton imprint.

129.

Franklin's Way To Wealth. New
York: Printed And Sold By S. Wood. At the
Juvenile Book-Store, No. 357, Pearl-Street. 1813.

Tan printed and illustrated wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
PS750 .W35 1813

The New York Quaker firm of Samuel Wood had begun publishing
children's books in 1806. The introduction to this edition refers to
"The London copy, from which this is printed." The
woodcuts are crude versions of the Darton engravings.

130.

The Art of Making Money Plenty, in every Man's
Pocket, By Dr. Franklin. New York:
Pub'd & Sold by S. Wood, 357 Pearl
St. [ca. 1811].

Although Samuel Wood copied a number of books published by the
English Darton firms, in this case, the Wood rebus is the source for
the later Darton imprint. This copy is of interest for another
reason: it is signed "A. Lincoln" on the front wrapper and
contains a sworn statement by Mrs. Lincoln's coachman that the book
is from Abraham Lincoln's collection. This famous forgery is thought
to be by Eugene Field II, son of the American poet.

131.

The Art Of Making Money Plenty, In Every Man's
Pocket. By Dr. Franklin.
London, Printed For Darton, Harvey
And Darton, Gracechurch Street, And For Win. Alexander,
York. 1817.

Red printed
and decorated wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
PN6367 .A78 1817 copy 2

This is the first edition published in England, and is based on
Samuel Wood's publication, with few alterations, in a reversal of
the usual pattern of transmission from England to the U.S. At this
period, the Gracechurch Street firm associated with the Quaker
activist publisher William Alexander of York in publishing Ann
Alexander's important pamphlet on the condition of climbing boys. In
1812, both the Gracechurch Street and the Holborn Hill firms had
joined with Alexander of York in the publication of Samuel
Tuke's Description of the Retreat, an
epoch-making examination of the Friends' institution for the
mentally ill.

132.

[Sarah Candler].
Buds Of Genius; Or, Some Account Of
The Early Lives Of Celebrated Characters Who Were Remarkable In
Their Childhood. Intended As An
Introduction to Biography. Second
Edition. London: Printed
For Darton, Harvey, And Darton, Gracechurch-Street.
1818. [Darton,
Harey (sic), and Co. Printers].

Marbled boards, green leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
CT107 .B917 1818

In the frontispiece, a soft edge engraving by an unknown illustrator
who also worked for John Harris, the young Franklin directs his
playmates to remove stones from a building site so that they can
erect a little quay from which to fish, a popular incident from
Franklin's Life and Works. Joseph
Lancaster uses the story in his Improvements In
Education to argue that such lively behavior should not be
repressed but directed toward useful ends: "Whenever a neat,
ingenious trick, of a mischievous nature, has been played, we may be
sure some arch wag, who officiates as captain of the gang, perhaps a
Franklin, was the original and life of the conspiracy."

133.

[Agnes Strickland].
The Moss-House: In Which Many Of The
Works Of Nature Are Rendered A Source Of Amusement To
Children. London: William
Darton, 58, Holborn Hill. 1822.
[Plates dated 1823] [London. William Darton].

Marbled boards, green leather spine, edges sprinkled red.

Lilly Library call number:
QH48 .S91 1823

The finely designed copperplate engraving shows Franklin engaged in
his famous kite experiment.

William Roscoe, Member of Parliament for Liverpool, a historian and friend of
Erasmus Darwin, wrote an appealingly simple poem called "The
Butterfly's Ball" for his son's birthday; it was published in 1806 in
the Gentleman's Magazine. Made up as a
children's book by the Harris firm, it inspired dozens of imitations. Only
the first edition contained the fine illustrations engraved after the
designs of Irish genre painter William Mulready, showing a fantastical
amalgam of child and creature; these were quickly replaced by insects and
animals, and the sequels were often long, complicated poems, appealing to a
Regency adult audience, or natural history teaching, sometimes containing
four or five pages of scientific notes. The instructiveness of the text,
however, thinly masked the imaginative license of some fine illustrators.
The Gracechurch Street firm joined with other publishers in some imitations
and produced some alone.

Scientific notes occupy pp. 15-16 of Part I and pp. 12-16 of Part II.
The author of this "light sketch" is "the Sea Pen," described in a note as
"a species of certain vegetables, or substances partaking of
the nature both of vegetables and animals." The illustrator has
portrayed this denizen of "Shaw's Natural Miscellany, Plate
124" as a gloriously Prufrockian mermaid, shown composing the
poem in her grotto: a rare portrait of a female author!

135.

The Lioness's Ball; Being A Companion To The
Lion's Masquerade. London:
Printed for C. Chapple, Pall Mall; B. Tabart, New
Bond-Street; J. Harris, St. Paul's Church-Yard; Darton and
Harvey, Gracechurch-Street; And All Other
Booksellers. [H. Reynell, Printer,
21, Piccadilly] [1808].

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .L578

136.

Mrs. Linzorn.
The Balaenic Games; Or, The Whale's
Jubilee. By Mrs. Linzorn.
London: Printed By And For Darton
And Harvey, No. 55, Gracechurch-Street. 1808. [Printed by W. Darton and J. and J. Harvey].

Buff printed and illustrated wrappers bound in.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .L5755 B17 1808

In 1808, Darton and Harvey published at least three imitations on
their own, The Court of the Beasts, Ann
Taylor'sThe Wedding Among the
Flowers, and The Balaenic Games, Or, The
Whale's Jubilee, which ends with a tournament compared
to that of Richard the Second at Smithfield. The illustrations to
all of these books suggest that the firm's opposition to fantasy
cannot have been overwhelming, especially when the fantastic could
be developed in a tradition established by the respectable
Dissenter, William Roscoe.

137.

[Ann Taylor Gilbert].
The Wedding Among The Flowers. By One Of The Authors Of Original
Poems, Rhymes For The Nursery, &c.
London: Printed And Sold By Darton
And Harvey, No. 55, Gracechurch-Street. 1808.

Pink printed and illustrated
wrappers bound in.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .T24 W4

Ann Taylor Gilbert found her "ambition being stirred" by
the rush of imitations of Roscoe, and leaving her father's workroom
an hour earlier than usual for a fortnight she wrote this charming
poem, for which "Our good friend, Darton" paid twelve
guineas. The witty engravings are drawn and engraved by her brother,
Isaac Taylor the younger.

138.

The Wonderful History Of The Busy Bees.
Published By Darton & Harvey, Gracechurch
Street. 1833. Price Sixpence, With Coloured Plates.

The illustrations for this Darton and Harvey publication from the
1830s recall the heady days of the original Butterfly's Ball. The
fantastical wood engraving of bees fighting off an invasion of wasps
with spears and swords is worthy of a modem comic book.

139.

Joseph Taylor, compiler.
Tales Of The Robin, And
Other Small Birds, Selected From The British Poets, For The
Instruction And Amusement Of Young People. By Joseph Taylor, Compiler of the
General Character of the Dog, Wonders of the Horse, &c. &c.
London: Printed
And Sold By William Darton, Jun. No. 58,
Holborn-Hill. 1815. [W. Darton, Printer].

Marbled boards, green leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
PN6110 .B6 T14 1815

W. and T. Darton advertised this fine anthology in 1809. William
Upton's poem "The Death of the Hawk and the Council of
Birds" is an imitation of The Butterfly's
Ball. Adelaide O'Keeffe's "The Redbreast's
Petition" from Original Poems, For Infant
Minds is included. Although this copy has an 1815 title
page, it contains William Darton's presentation leaf, probably
engraved after his father's death in 1819; the book may have been
made up later of sheets from the 1815 edition.

140.

Joseph Taylor, compiler.
Tales Of The Robin, And
Other Small Birds; Selected From The British Poets, For The
Instruction and Amusement of Young People.
By Joseph Taylor, Compiler of the General Character
of the Dog, Wonders of the Horse, &. &.
Philadelphia: Published And Sold By
Wm. Charles, No. 32, South Third Street. M'Carty &
Davis, Printers. 1817.

Copied from an earlier Darton edition, the plates have been colored
by hand. William Charles of Philadelphia was among the first to
introduce colored plates into children's books in the United States.
The printers, M'Carty & Davis, eventually took over the
Quaker firm of Johnson and Warner, and in turn sold their stock to
the uncle of A. S. W. Rosenbach.

Beginnings at Holborn Hill: Picture Books for Children

Who catch'd his blood?
I, said the Fish.
With my little dish,
And I catch'd his blood.

Death And Burial Of Cock Robin

According to "the timid hare," Cock Robin died "Oct.r 25
1805." About five months before, John Harris had published The Comic Adventures of Old Mother Hubbard and Her
Dog, establishing the formula for the small, square, copper-engraved
picture books, brightly colored by hand, which must have brought so much
pleasure to children of the time. Harris's brilliant venture provides one
context; Darton and Harvey had provided another. In 1804-05, the younger
William Darton's publishing venture was just getting under way as his father
achieved his greatest success, the publication of the two volumes of Original Poems, For Infant Minds. It must have
seemed intimidating.

141.

This is one of the earliest picture books of this rhyme, the subject
of many chapbooks, and its illustrations are a masterpiece of the
genre. In keeping with the small scale of the burial, the
"beadle" stitching the shroud should probably be a beetle,
and the "bull" tolling the bell might properly be a bullfinch.

Displayed in a later reissue of the book is the famous "timid
hare" plate with the gravestone showing the date of the death,
and, apparently, of the engraving.

143.

[Continuation of the Moving Adventures of Old
Dame Trot and her Comical Cat. (Attributed to the pen of the Duchess of L****; and
illustrated with elegant engravings after Sir Joshua.)
London: Published by W. and T.
Darton. 1806].

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .O435 1806

The Dame's cat takes a lover in this zany continuation of her
adventures. In their attribution of the work "to the pen of the
Duchess of L****, the brothers have revived the fanciful Newbery
style that their father had explicitly suppressed on his new title
page for Goody Two Shoes.

This is the characteristic red wrapper in which a number of the books
from the earlier period were reissued by William Darton after his
father's death. Over a bookshelf in the first engraving are the
words "The Pretty Books in this corner/Belong to Little Jack Horner."

Portraying the old woman's fearful flight from what turns out to be a
natural rather than a supernatural pursuer, the illustrator has made
an ambitious attempt to show night scenes throughout. In this copy,
the word "ghost" has been inked out at each occurrence.
This is the first separate edition of Bloomfield's popular poem,
taken from Rural Tales, Ballads, and
Songs, 1802.

The rapidly changing view of what might be appropriate for children
is expressed in an interesting alteration to this book; the plate
showing the pig slaughtering a man, elements of which have been
taken from the Edward Ryland edition of The World
Turned Upside Down of the 1760s, has been replaced by a
plate showing a leashed man dancing for a bear.

147.

A Regency fop of a cat, not the fairy tale character, buys his boots
at Hoby's in St. James. "Further Proofs Of Fashion"
include "Pantaloons, a cravat,/ And an Opera hat, Which he
wore on his head, a la Russe." Regrettably, the captions and
lower parts of some of the wonderful plates have been trimmed.

Portraits of Curious Characters

This extraordinary female has never been known to have appeared
in any other but the male dress since her arrival in England, where
she remained upwards of thirty years; and upon occasions she would
attend at court, decked in very superb attire; and was well
remembered about the streets of London; and particularly frequent in
attending book auctions, and would buy to a large amount, sometimes
a coach load, &c.

Portraits Of Curious Characters in London

Among the most interesting of the books published by William Darton the
younger are some which reveal an interest in social commentary, using
woodcuts and engravings on wood instead of copper. The expressed intent
of Portraits of Curious Characters is to
evoke tolerance for its range of eccentrics, and in succeeding editions the
death of one or the other of the featured characters is announced; but like
London Cries, which dates from the same year,
Portraits is a bookish book, drawing on
popular sources, and its images celebrate the popular print.

First published in 1806, Portraits Of Curious
Characters in London reflects the contemporary passion
for prints representing vendors, street people, and eccentrics as
spectacle. Theodora de Verdion, "commonly known by the name of
Chevalier John Theodora De Verdion, Who lived in London disguised as
a man, a teacher of languages and a walking bookseller," was
born around 1744. A copper engraving from which the image in Portraits descends, with folio volumes held
at a different angle under one arm and with the umbrella reversed,
had appeared as early as 1770.

This popular print shows its descent from the same eighteenth-century
engraving that has influenced the image in
Portraits of Curious Characters; her death date is given
as 1802, emphasizing the topicality of the subject.

The American edition has been copied from the 1806 English edition.
Some of the wood engravings are signed "Morgan," probably
William P. Morgan, one of the pupils of Alexander Anderson, the
first American to follow Bewick's method. Lydia Bailey, the printer,
was one of the most prominent members of the book trade in Philadelphia.

151.

London Melodies; Or Cries Of The Seasons. Part I.
Printed By William
Darton, Jun. 58 Holborn-Hill. (Price One Shilling.)
[1812] [William Darton jun. Printer].

Marbled boards, red leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
GT3450 .L8476 1812a

The caricatures and text combine to produce a book of unusual power
and interest. Professor Sean Shesgreen has suggested it belongs with
volumes like Rowlandson's Characteristic
Sketches and Cruikshank's London
Characters. Some of the wood blocks used in London Melodies are in the Hindson-Reid
collection in the University Library, Newcastle upon Tyne. They were
made by the older woodcutting method, not the end grain wood
engraving technique perfected by Bewick.

On the front cover of this hand-colored picture book of London criers
for younger children is an image of Billy Waters, a well-known black
street fiddler with a wooden leg, copied directly from Thomas
Busby's image, collected in hisCostume of the
Lower Orders of London. In 1823, Busby's plate of Billy
Waters appeared in a small children's book with truncated text and a
wretched doggerel poem. The image could have been copied from
Busby's book, from the print which circulated on its own, or from
the children's book.

153.

The Adventures Of The Celebrated Little Thomas
Dellow, Who was Stolen from his Parents on the 18th of November,
1811. And Restored To Them On the 3d of January, 1812.
Illustrated By Engravings.
London: Printed By And For Wm.
Darton, 58, Holborn-Hill, Opposite Ely Place. 1812. [Price One Shilling.]

Lilly Library call number:
HV6604 .G7 A24 1812

A sensational story from the Gentleman's
Magazine has been illustrated with eight copper engravings,
a striking woodcut, and a woodcut vignette. In the account,
"When brought into court, the child wore a hat and feather
purchased for him by his reputed mother." In the copper
engraving, little Thomas Dellow perches rather stiffly in his
mother's arms wearing the tell-tale headgear; the woodcut, on the
other hand, portrays a magnificent hat and feather and a glorying child.

J. H. P. Pafford identifies the 1812 edition of this work as
"the earliest known dated edition with 'Moral Songs' in the
title." There are twelve woodcuts, including the depiction of
the thief hanging, a common illustration in editions up to the early
nineteenth century, but less so by this date.

Mary Belson Elliott

"What then, you think, Mamma, little girls, only six years
old cannot learn geography?"

"Not exactly so, Charlotte; I do not however think it
necessary to give my reasons to a little girl of that age."

Mary Belson Elliott, Precept And Example

The younger William Darton was still working with his brother Thomas when he
published the first works of his major author, Mary Belson, afterwards
Elliott. The elegant makeup of many of the Elliott books, with unpretentious
paper wrappers opening to reveal engraved folding frontispieces, represent
the publisher at his best. Peopled by the children of good-natured
cottagers, loyal villagers, and benevolent owners of comfortable country
houses, Mary Elliott's stories nevertheless depict a fragile world, in which
limited events have infinite consequences. A girl's vanity is shown to be
the cause of her hideous burns, a boy's innocent errand results in a
disfiguring case of smallpox, a casual meeting with an old man in the woods
brings news of a son transported for poaching, a mentally retarded boy is
abused, a father's chance injury threatens disaster for a poor family.
Embedded in domestic routine, whether in the country house or the cottage,
her children find their individual acts and each nuance of a projected
behavior overseen and examined by an adult conscience. Within this uncertain
world, the idea of the family as a haven extends across classes; her gift
for portraying the insulating warmth of the nuclear family looks forward to
Louisa May Alcott. She was extremely popular in the United States, where
McGloughlin was publishing a series of her stories into the 1860s.

156.

[Mary Belson Elliott].
The Mice, And Their Pic Nic.
A Good Moral Tale, &c. By A
Looking-Glass Maker. London:
Printed for the Author, by W. and T. Darton, 58,
Holborn Hill. 1809.

Lilly Library call number:
PR4699 .E53 M61 1809 copy 2

This is the first of Mary Belson Elliott's books for the Holborn Hill
firm, a colorful narrative poem about Town Mice and Country Mice;
the description of the homeward journey of the rag-tag band of
survivors is worthy of Watership Down.
Although W. and T. Darton seem to have accepted the book at the
author's own risk, they have produced it with bold illustrations by
a gifted wood engraver. The hand-colored plates have been bound out
of order in this copy.

The appealing little Charlotte, rather like Maria Edgeworth's
Rosamond inThe Purple Jar, retains her
sweetness while having her enthusiasm dampened. Although this early
work shows Mary Elliott's narrative skill, she seems to be writing
to please her publisher, advertising his dissected maps, instilling
contempt for the penny-books of the village book seller, and
encouraging child consumer instincts in the building of a proper
juvenile library.

The preface to the first edition of 1809 stated that these poems were
the work of "two Young Ladies" attempting to support an
aged mother, and the poems were individually signed
"Eliza" and "Mary." The second author is not
credited here. The illustrator of "The Man of Snow" has
based the scene on Thomas Bewick's tail-piece to the red-legged crow
in History of British Birds, which had
previously been copied for the Gracechurch Street publication,
Youthful Sports, 1801. The very worn
plate bears the imprint of the first edition: "London:
Published July 6th 1809 by W and T Darton 58 Holborn Hill." The
elder William Darton wrote in Little Jack Of All
Trades that "The chief purpose of engraving is to give
a thousand or more copies of one drawing or painting." In fact,
the soft surface of the metal wore quickly.

The plates are dated "London: William Darton 58 Holborn Hill.
Oct.r 30. 1819"; the elder William Darton had died in August.
The copper-engraved folding frontispiece depicts a country picnic,
to which a lame child is delivered by cart. A two-pronged fork is
laid on the picnic cloth.

160.

Mary Belson Elliott.
Rural Employments; Or, A Peep Into
Village Concerns. Designed To Instruct
The Minds Of Children. Illustrated by numerous Copper-plates. By
Mary Elliott. London:
William Darton, 58, Holborn-Hill. 1820. [Printed by J. and C.
Adlard, 23, Bartholomew-Close].

Marbled boards, leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
S519 .E53 R94 1820

Among the many fine plates depicting scenes from rural life is that
of a woman and little girl "Swarming the Bees."

One of the most beautiful of the productions of the Holborn Hill
firm, this book is made up from a hand-colored copper-engraved
picture sheet, cut and folded; the title of the sheet was placed top
center on the engraved sheet; when it was made into book form, the
title section fell on the second page, unless the verses were put
out of order.

Three Elliott books are displayed in their original paper wrappers,
which when opened reveal the elaborate folding frontispiece and
pretty plates. Elliott's straightforward style meant that her
stories could be easily translated, and a series of them was
produced for English children studying French, using the engraved
illustrations with their English captions. Some of the stories
appeared in German.

163.

Mary Belson Elliott.
Goody Two Shoes; Exemplifying The Good
Consequences Of Early Attention To Learning and Virtue.
London: William Darton And Son,
Holborn Hill. [ca. 1830]
[Printed by and for W. Darton, Jun.]

Pink printed and illustrated paper wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
PR4699 .E53 M68 1830

The adaptation, first published in 1815, is not very appealing, but
the illustrator's conception of Goody Two Shoes is; the plates in
this apparent reissue of the 1819 edition include a folding frontispiece.

The wood engravings in this American edition are by Alexander
Anderson, the first important wood engraver in the United States.
The bright orange cover with its bold leopard vignette is a nice
departure for Samuel Wood.

165.

[Mary Belson Elliott].
The Sailor Boy. Or The First And Last
Voyage. Of Little Andrew. Portland:
Bailey & Noyes [n.d.]

Pink printed and illustrated wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
PR4699 .E53 S1314 1830

A revised abridgement of Mary Elliott's story, decorated by woodcuts,
is one of a series of nursery chapbooks published by the Maine firm.

166.

The running title gives the correct title, The
White Chicken. On the back cover is advertised
"Mrs. Elliott's Series," which includes besides The Lost Chicken, five other stories, Beauty but Skin Deep, The Little Mimic, The
Greedy Child Cured, The Contrast, or How to Be Happy,
andThe Bird's Nest, all in the same
format, "Finely Illustrated and Colored."

Arabella Argus and Mary Robson Hughs

How many children, younger than yourself, are working in the
various manufactories, which our happy island supports, where they
are excluded any material benefit from the comfort of a fire, and
fare on the most homely food, and that, perhaps, in limited
proportions! There are very few real troubles attached to
childhood,—even those who are most unfortunately situated, by which
I mean children, who are orphans, who depend upon precarious
friendships, or are confined to sedentary employments;—even these
find their hours of happiness, and in play, a moderate recreation,
or the approbation of their protectors, forget their little sorrows.

Arabella Argus, The Juvenile Spectator

Writers on conduct drew on essays from The
Spectator throughout the eighteenth century, making it a natural
reference point for a definitive work on the conduct of children; there had
already been a Female Spectator. The author who
wrote under the pseudonym Arabella Argus has not been identified. Her
careful observations on children's education suggest she may have worked as
a governess. She opposes fantasy in books for children, yet assumes an
audience already familiar

with "that wonderful
cap" of invisibility. She does not agree with the contemporary view
that instruction and entertainment can be well combined, believing that
children pretend to notice the moral in order to get on with the amusement.
She disagrees with Mary Elliott about accumulating a juvenile library:

For my own part, I am an avowed enemy to very extensive libraries for
children. Give them a few books, and let them be of the best sort. If they
really love reading they will not fail to go through them two or three
times; there are few children who may not with propriety be termed
superficial readers. Thus, the frequent perusal of a small, select library
must consequently lay a good foundation for the watchful parent to improve.

167.

Arabella Argus, pseud.
The Juvenile Spectator; Being Observations On The
Tempers, Manners, And Foibles Of Various Young Persons,
Interspersed With such lively Matter, as it is presumed will
amuse as well as instruct. By Arabella Argus.
London: Printed By
And For W. And T. Darton, 58, Holborn-Hill. 1810. [W. and T. Darton, Printers].

Bound in tree sheep.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .A694 J96

William Darton the younger and his brother Thomas introduced Arabella
Argus with this book, which has come to be thought of as one of the
classics of children's literature of the period. The narrator
incorporates her conduct essay into an exchange of letters between
herself and the children; the old bachelor Timothy Testy might have
been manufactured for an exchange in the original Spectator. It is a
strongly intelligent book examining critical issues in the education
of children of the period, and of great historical interest to those
studying the period today.

168.

Arabella Argus, pseud.
The Juvenile Spectator: Part The Second. Containing Some Account Of Old
Friends, And An Introduction To A Few Strangers. By Arabella
Argus. London: Printed By
And For W. Darton, 58, Holborn-Hill. 1812. [W. Darton, Printer].

Bound in tree sheep.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .A694 J97

Thomas Darton was no longer a partner when William Darton the younger
published this much less satisfying book, which abandons the
letter-writing form, and much of the wit of the narrator. The
Mordaunts have retired to the country with their appealing children,
and Mrs. Bently's wretched charges from the West Indies must make
every reader long for their return.

169.

Arabella Argus, pseud.
The Adventures Of A Donkey. By Arabella Argus, Author of "The Juvenile
Spectator."
London: Printed By And For William
Darton, Jun. 58, Holborn Hill. 1815.

Marbled boards, red leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .A694 A2

This picaresque tale of a donkey, told in his own words, features
gypsies, faithless servants, and the street criers in the flower
market at Covent Garden. The frontispiece is captioned by four lines
from Samuel Coleridge's early poem, "The Ass." In 1844, in
her survey of children's books in the Quarterly
Review, the critic Elizabeth Rigby ranked the book with
"Mrs. Trimmer's Robins" among the classics of "direct amusement."

Although "founded on facts," Mrs. Hughs's moral tale
contains vivid characters, akin to the dishonest servants in the
fiction of her friend, Maria Edgeworth, to whom the preface of this
book is addressed. The story is a chilling one, in which an aunt
takes poison and a thieving uncle goes to the gallows. Mary Robson
Hughs began to write for the Holborn Hill firm at about the same
time as Arabella Argus and a little later than Mary Belson Elliott:
an impressive lineup of authors for the younger William Darton. An
emigrant to Philadelphia, Mrs. Hughs kept a school for girls from
1819, successfully established, according to Sara J. Hale's Woman's Record, because of the reputation of
her children's books in the United States. Hale placed her among the
"pioneers in the path of Christian education."

Tabart

The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will poor robin do then?

Songs For The Nursery

Shortly after he set up by himself, around 1811, the younger William Darton
bought some books from Benjamin Tabart, who seems to have been experiencing
financial difficulties, and was selling off stock. Tabart, a Huguenot
publisher, had a wonderful list, including a classic collection of nursery
rhymes, which would hereafter be kept alive at Holborn Hill. Some of the
Tabart books were issued with no change other than scraping off the Tabart
imprint from the plates and substituting the Darton one. As with many of the
Newbery books purchased by Darton and Harvey, some of the Tabart books were
advertised but have not been located in Darton editions.

171.

[Ann Taylor Gilbert] and
[Jane Taylor].
Signor Topsy-Turvy's Wonderful Magic
Lantern; Or, The World turned upside down. By The Author Of "My Mother," And Other
Poems. Illustrated With Twenty-Four Engravings.
London: Printed For Tabart &
Co. At The Juvenile And School Library, No. 157, New
Bond-Street; And To Be Had Of All Booksellers: By B. M'Millan,
Bow Street, Covent Garden.
1810. [Price 3s.6d Bound.]

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .T24 W93

This fascinating book appears to have been in the lot bought from
Tabart; it was advertised from Holborn Hill as "By the Authors
of 'Original Poems.' Illustrated with Twenty-four Engravings by the
Rev. Isaac Taylor, of Colchester." No Darton edition has been
traced. Sir Richard Phillips, the radical publisher imprisoned for
selling Paine's Rights of Man, had asked
Ann and Jane Taylor to revise an old book, apparentlyThe World Turned Upside Down, Or, The Comical
Metamorphoses, published by Edward Ryland in the 1760s. Some
of the illustrations, which were drawn by their brother Isaac, are
based on those in the Ryland book, from which the illustrator of the
younger William Darton's The World turned
Upside-Down also took some ideas.

172.

[R. R.].
The Good Boy's Soliloquy; Containing
His Parents' Instructions, Relative To His Disposition and
Manners. By the Author of the Invited
Alphabet, &c.
London: Printed By William Darton,
Jun. 58, Holborn-Hill. 1813. (Price One Shilling.)
[Printed by W. Darton, jun.]

Tan illustrated wrappers bound in.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .R14 1813

The plates are dated 1811, from the first edition. Marjorie Moon was
unable to trace a Tabart edition of this book, but it is by the
author of, and illustrated in the style of, three books bought from
Tabart: The Invited Alphabet, The Assembled Alphabet, and Infantile Erudition. Although the
"Parents' Instructions" appear to be tongue-in-cheek, in
this copy a rebellious child has inserted many negatives for good measure.

173.

The Wonders Of The Microscope; Or, An Explanation
Of The Wisdom Of The Creator In Objects Comparatively Minute:
Adapted To The Understanding Of Young Persons.
Illustrated with Copper-plates.
London: Printed (By Assignment) For
William Darton, 58, Holborn Hill. 1823. [Printed by G. Smallfield, Hackney].

Marbled boards, red leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
QH277 .W87 1823

The spectacular plates in this small book, four of which fold out,
are engraved full size after plates in Hooke's
Micrographia, 1665. The book was advertised from Holborn
Hill in 1812, but no Darton imprint earlier than 1823 has been found.

174.

Songs For The Nursery, Collected From The Works
Of The Most Renowned Poets, And Adapted To Favourite National
Melodies. London: Printed
For Tabart And Co. At The Juvenile And School Library, New
Bond-Street: And To Be Had Of All Booksellers.
[Price Sixpence without prints, One Shilling and
Sixpence with prints, or Half-a-Crown with the prints coloured].
1808. [Marchant, Printer, 3, Greville-Street, Holborn.]

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .M915 1808

This important collection was first published by Tabart in 1805, and
includes the first printing of a number of rhymes; the hand-colored
plates in this copy are dated May, 1806.

175.

Songs For The Nursery, Collected From The Works
Of The Most Renowned Poets, And Adapted To Favourite National
Melodies. London: William
Darton, 58, Holborn Hill. 1825. [G. Smallfield, Printer, Hackney].

Buff printed and decorated wrappers bound in.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .M915 1825

Songs For The Nursery first appeared with
the younger William Darton's imprint in 1818, with the fine plates
taken over from Tabart. The 1825 edition lists the prices, "6d.
without Plates. 1s.6d. with Twenty-Four Plain Plates. 2s.6d. with
Twenty-Four Coloured Plates."

176.

Songs For The Nursery, Collected From the Works
of the most renowned Poets, And Adapted To Favourite National
Melodies. London: William
Darton And Son, Holborn Hill. [ca. 1835] [There are two
separate printers' imprints: "Stewart And Co., Old
Bailey" and "William Darton And Son"]

Ornamented plum ribbed cloth, stamped in gold.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .M915 1830

This fascinating book is an amateur scholar's edition of the nursery
rhymes. The preface refers disparagingly to a recent article tracing
nursery rhymes to sources. The traditional rhymes have been
supplemented by literary works, including "The Guinea Pig"
from the Newbery Poetical Description Of
Beasts, one of the books purchased by Darton and Harvey at
the Horn Tavern sale in 1792. There are added poems attributed to
Jane Taylor, and poems by Wordsworth and Southey. The Jewish
Passover rhyme "A Kid, a Kid, my Father bought" is printed
and offered as the model for accumulative rhymes like "The
House that Jack Built." The Tabart plates are used, but many
new plates appear, often side by side with the old, so that a
comparativist vision is achieved. A fine new frontispiece gives
summary scenes from several rhymes.

A Question of Identity

I was surprised that I was not made to adopt the plain dress of
the friends, and long expected to see my little cap and brown bonnet
prepared for me; but, on the contrary, I was more elegant and
splendid than ever. In fact, Elizabeth Clarkson loved a little
finery, and sometimes ornamented the bonnets of her school-girls
with a bow of pink ribbon, but one reproving glance from her
governess would always displace it.

Mary Mister, The Adventures Of A Doll

In the years after his father's death in 1819, the younger William Darton
seems to have experienced a kind of crisis of identity. Some of the
engraving of this period, starting with the haunting frontispiece of The
Children in the Wood, seems to suggest a new intensity of artistic interest
on the part of the engraver as well as the illustrator; spectacular games
and puzzles appear; and around 1825, his imprint included the words "at
the Repertory of Genius." Like the Quaker Miss Clarkson in The
Adventures of a Doll, the younger William Darton "loved a little
finery," and this is nowhere more apparent than in the series of
presentation and trade plates he produced sometime after 1819, which were
tipped into many Holborn Hill publications. They are almost certainly his
own work, and they give a sense of the elegant style and apparent confusion
of the man, satisfying his own artistic impulses while appealing to an
affluent audience, which included many of the Quaker middle class.

177.

The Children In The Wood: A Tale For The
Nursery. With Copper-plates.
A New Edition. London:
William Darton, Jun. 58 Holborn Hill.
1819.
Price Sixpence.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .C48 1819

Later revised editions of this book were attributed to Mary Elliott,
but the resonant language seems to belong to the classic fairy tale.
The artist who has made the drawing, and the engraver (probably
William Darton the younger himself) who has translated it onto
copper have pushed to the limits of erotic expressivity. In nature's
voluptuous embrace, the dead children's foregrounded bodies evoke
the mystery and power celebrated in the Romantic view of the child.
The affection children

of the period felt for the ballad and the many
nursery stories based on it can be seen in the climax of William
Howitt's lyrical description of collecting birds' eggs in The Boy's Country-Book, 1839, proscribing
only the wren's nest and the robin's: "The robin holds a rank
of high respect, as the friend and sexton of the Children in the
Wood. He always hangs dead leaves out in front of his nest as his
coat of arms, derived from that meritorious deed."

William Darton's engraved presentation plates have an upper and a
lower vignette enclosing the "tribute" or
"token" or "testimony" into which the names of
giver and receiver could be written. At least six have been
identified. In this one, angels with floral wreaths hover above an
allegory of learning and art: a globe, an owl, the painter's
palette, and a book beneath a crown radiating light. The
presentation leaf, "In Testimony of Regard," is inscribed
to "Elizabeth Whitfield" from "her affectionate
sister Mary. Novr 22nd 1828."The
Metamorphoses was first published in 1818.

179.

[Agnes Strickland].
A Mother's Care Rewarded; In The
Correction Of Those Defects, Most General In Young People,
During Their Education. London:
William Darton, 58, Holborn-Hill. [Plates dated 2 mo. 23. 1824]
[G. Smallfield, Printer, Hackney].

Two elaborate presentation plates are clearly addressed to Friends. A
winged boy with a friendly collared dog holds a dove, as doves meet
overhead: "A Tribute of Regard, Presented by Thy Affectionate
Friend." In the second plate, a young man offers a book to a
young woman: "A Tribute of Regard, Presented by a Friend."

Nathaniel Cotton composed his enduringly popular book of poems for
children in 1751. This copy contains one of William Darton's
engraved trade plates; at least ten varieties have been noted, half
of them variations of this "Repertory of Genius" plate,
advertising "William Darton, at the Repertory of Genius, 58,
Holborn Hill, London. Maps, Charts & Plans of every
description, Extensive collections of Books for the use of Children
and Young People, and Works of Merit as soon as Published. School
Books in every branch of Education and Books in all Languages. Arts,
Sciences & Polite Literature, either in Plain or Elegant Bindings."

181.

The Delicious Game of the Fruit Basket,
Containing A literary Treat for a Party of Juveniles, and
running over with choice subjects for their Improvement and
Diversion. London: William
Darton; 58, Holborn Hill. [1822].

Slipcase title. With the Book of Rules printed by R. and A.
Taylor. Hand-colored engraved panels on folded linen, in a slipcase
with label. Loaned by Pamela K. Harer.

Embedded in a gaily colored pear as number ten of the stations is
"A National School," using the monitorial system favored
by Andrew Bell. The booklet explains that "Mr. Joseph
Lancaster, one of the Society of Friends (usually called Quakers),
and the Rev. Dr. Bell, have been the chief instruments in this plan
of education." Bell's sectarian group was favored by the
Charity School movement. In 1820, two years after Lancaster had
emigrated to America, Brougham first proposed in Parliament a
national education scheme based on the Lancasterian system.

In the 1820s, William joined with his brother Samuel of Gracechurch
Street in some joint publishing, including this reissue of Richard
Scrafton Sharpe's fables, printed at Holborn Hill. Sharpe wrote for
another publisher the famous Anecdotes and
Adventures of Fifteen Gentlemen.

184.

The Christian Sects; Containing An Account Of
Their Origin, Or Founders; A Brief Sketch Of Their History;
Distinguishing Doctrines, Rites, And Ceremonies; Their Eminent
Men, Or Chief Writers; Their Numbers, And the Countries in which
they are most Prevalent. London:
William Darton, 58, Holborn Hill. [Plates dated "2 mo. 28, 1825"].

Printed and decorated buff wrappers.

Lilly Library call number:
BR157 .C55

As if to balance the advertisement of his products from the
"Repertory of Genius," at about the same period William
Darton dates many of his plates according to the Quaker manner,
which numbers the months instead of giving them their pagan-derived
names. One of the engraved scenes shows "Emanuel
Swedenborg—conversing with Angels."

185.

[William Rawes].
Examples For Youth, In Remarkable
Instances Of Early Piety In Children And Young Persons Members
Of The Society Of Friends. London:
William Darton, 58, Holborn Hill.
1824.
Price 2s. bound.

Marbled boards, red leather spine. Loaned by Mr. Lawrence Darton.

The preface describes the book as "intended for the perusal of
children" and recommends it as both "proper for
schools" and for "the families of Friends." The
accounts of dying children are taken from John Kendall's edition of
Piety Promoted and from Thomas
Wagstaffe's later volume, and include the death scene of William
Penn's eldest son, Springet, who died in 1696. The frontispiece,
which is dated 1822 from the earlier edition, portrays the dying of
Blessing Fenn of Cork, born in 1700 and dead at thirteen, "a
child of weakly constitution, but of a ripe and ingenious wit."
Literary tradition extending down from James Janeway affected the
manner of children's deaths in books, but the accounts themselves
affected real children, like the young William Godwin, who
understood the central place the inspired child had seized in the
imaginations of those around him: "I felt as if I were willing
to die with them if I could with equal success, engage the
admiration of my friends and mankind."

186.

J. B.
The Pet Lamb, In Rhythm, Intended As An Innocent
Exercise For The Memory Of Children. To which are added, The Ladder Of Learning, And The
Robin. By J. B. Embellished With Many Copper-Plates.
London: William Darton, 58, Holborn
Hill; Sold Also By Harvey And Darton, 55, Gracechurch Street;
And John Harris, St. Paul's Church Yard. [Plates dated "2 mo.3.1829"]
[London: William Darton, 58, Holborn Hill].

Gray printed and decorated wrappers, edges gilt.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .J113 P4 1829

William Darton published some books in a tripartite imprint with the
Gracechurch Street firm and the younger John Harris. The final step
in "The Ladder Of Learning" is "Trade." The
advertising leaf, bound out of place, lists "The Prints For
Infant Schools, consisting of a series of Large Sheet Prints,
various sorts, uniformly engraved. Coloured, Price 1s. each."
On the list areChildren's Pictures To Amuse And
Instruct,The Five Senses, and
The Art Of Talking With The Fingers.

187.

The Art Of Talking With The Fingers.
London: William Darton; at the
Repertory of Genius; 58 Holborn Hill. [ca. 1825].

Loaned by the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books,
Toronto Public Library.

This splendid print was advertised at the back of The Pet Lamb as
"The Art of Talking with the Fingers, or The Dumb Alphabet.
Whereby conversation may be held with those who are either deaf or
dumb." It has been beautifully hand-colored.

188.

The Five Senses.
London: William Darton, at the
Repertory of Genius, Holborn Hill. [ca. 1825].

Loaned by Mr. Lawrence Darton.

The large sheet print advertised in The Pet
Lamb as "The Five Senses; representing an engraved
exhibition of Seeing, Hearing, Tasting, Smelling, and Feeling,"
has been made up into a wooden jigsaw puzzle with keysheet; the
design cleverly incorporates the five senses in a single striking composition.

The signature initials "W D" are formed on a pincushion
with pins; some of the plates are dated 1799. It seems
uncharacteristic of William Darton the elder, who is not known to
have put his initials elsewhere; however, apprentices at Gracechurch
Street did leave an identifying mark occasionally. Could the "W
D" be William Darton the younger during his apprenticeship? An
1824 picture book with new engravings of 216 cuts published by
Harvey and Darton omits the pincushion.

190.

Children's Pictures To Amuse And
Instruct. London: William
Darton, at the Repertory of Genius, Holborn Hill.
[ca. 1825].

Lilly Library call number:
PE1449 .C536

This pretty hand-colored sheet print, consistent with the
object-teaching method of Comenius, was advertised as
"Children's Pictures to Amuse and Instruct, contrived to fix on
the attention of young children a knowledge of many useful
things." The engravings bear a close relation to the Harvey and
Darton cuts of 1824. The maker has left his mark; one of the
pictures is a letter, handsomely addressed To W.m Darton
Holborn Hill .

The Girl Question

"But she is dressing her doll, not herself," you will
say. Just so; she sees her doll, she cannot see herself; she cannot
do anything for herself, she has neither the training, nor the
talent, nor the strength; as yet she herself is nothing, she is
engrossed in her doll and all her coquetry is devoted to it. This
will not always be so; in due time she will be her own doll.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile

One remark made by my father I remember also,—"I do not want
my girls to be authors."

Ann Taylor Gilbert, Autobiography

191.

The Prize For Youthful Obedience.
London: Printed And Sold By Darton
And Harvey, Gracechurch-Street. 1800. [Printed by Darton and Harvey].

Flexible marbled boards bound in.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .P96 pt.1

The little fruitseller works at her needle while waiting for
customers. The country setting of the book suggests she is selling
family produce. Children had always worked in the family economy.
With the rise of the factory system they also worked outside the
family, and the exploitation of child labor, especially in the
cotton mills, was a fact of contemporary life. In Adelaide
O'Keeffe's poem "Sea-Weeds," a local mother explains that
the children seem healthy because there is "no manufacture
here,/They're not confin'd, but live in air."

192.

Little Jack Of All Trades, With Suitable
Representations. Part II.
London: Printed And Sold By Darton
And Harvey, Gracechurch-Street. 1806. [Darton and Harvey, Printers].

Two female workers are pictured in the book, the young woman sewing
bookbindings, perhaps a sister or wife in the setting of a family
business, and the tambour worker; netmaking is said to be a trade
appropriate to women and children, and in the 1823 edition, a little
girl is shown working at a net. Embroidery outwork was considered
acceptable employment for women forced to seek paid work thought
contrary to their class status, and needlework was often their only
marketable skill. William Darton's text encourages women in this
work, and the engraving represents it as a respectable
family-oriented occupation. Outside the family setting, tambour
workshops took children bound by the parish, who were often
mistreated. In 1801 the trial for cruelty of a London workshop
master, five of whose female apprentices had already died, revealed
the treatment of tambour embroiderers to be "disgraceful to any
civilised state."

193.

[Ann Taylor Gilbert] and
[Jane Taylor].
Rural Scenes: Or, A Peep Into The
Country, For Good Children. London:
Printed For And Sold By Darton and Harvey,
Gracechurch-Street. 1806.
Price Half-A-Crown. [Printed by W. Darton, & J. & J. Harvey].

Drab boards, red leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
S519 .T23 R94 1806

The frontispiece is dated 1805, from the first edition, and evokes
eighteenth century allegorical scenes popular in the time of the
authors' grandfather, the respected copperplate engraver Isaac
Taylor, who had provided employment for Bewick during his stay in
London. The countryside was changing, had changed, even before the
book appeared. As a child around 1786 in the rural town of Lavenham,
Ann Taylor had been charmed "on a summer's afternoon to see the
street lined with spinning wheels (not spinning-jennies, but Jennies
spinning); everywhere without, the whiz of the wheels, and within,
the scrape of the shuttle, the clatter and thump of the loom at
which the men were at work." In 1805, when Rural Scenes was published, with its scenes
of spinning, making lace, and knitting, cottage industry of this
kind in which families worked side by side was rapidly giving way to
factory work.

This copy of the American edition of Rural
Scenes has a charming inscription by a nostalgic owner:

This little book I had when I was four years old. Once knew its
pieces by heart. It brings
back to me childhoods days more than any book or any thing. J. M. H.
It above all brings back to me my mother's image.

In the text, written around 1798, William Darton seems ambivalent
about the women's work he had known all his life; it is both healthy
for women, yet, under the new attitudes, inappropriate for them.
While a growing body of opinion consigned women to genteel
dependence, factories thrived on the labor of women and children. In
Little Truths Better Than Great
Fables , Darton had explained to the children that some
mills "are now worked by steam," that at Manchester there
was "a mill for spinning cotton-wool into thread," and
that there was "a mill now invented for weaving of cloth."
By the time of A Present For A Little
Boy, children from the London workhouses were being carted
wholesale to the cotton mills in the north, and those often the
younger, the sicker, proportionately more girls than boys. Peel's
Act of 1802 was designed to ameliorate their conditions.

Domestic service took the vast majority of girls working outside the
home. A wonderful look into the world of "mild"
child-rearing, this illustrated manual for nursemaids treats the
first three years of a child's life. Topics range from the use of
"child's cordial" (laudanum) for "Restless
Nights," to a feeling discussion of the needs of an older
sibling ("Never Grieve One To Please Another").
Arthington's preface indicates that young mothers "in the
middle circles of life" may also have use for this book. Maria
Arthington was a Friend; her book was first published by William
Darton at Holborn Hill around 1825, in a tripartite imprint with
Harvey and Darton and the younger John Harris.

197.

[François de Salignac de la Mothe] Fénelon.
On The Education Of Daughters;
Translated From The French Of The Abbé Fenélon
[sic], Afterwards Archbishop Of Cambray.
London: Printed By And For W.
Darton, Jun. 58, Holborn Hill, opposite Ely Place.
1812.

Marbled boards, red leather spine. Loaned by Mr. Lawrence Darton.

"Nothing," the book begins, "is more neglected than
the education of girls." The translator's preface is signed
"A. L. L." A translation of the author's celebrated Télémaque was a favorite of English children (in
Howitt's Mary Leeson the girls take the
parts of Télémaque and Mentor). The seventeenth-century author's
meditative books appealed to the Quietist sentiments of many
Quakers: Directions For A Holy Life
carried a Darton imprint in 1790. This book is one of the earliest
examples of the younger William Darton's use of a copper-engraved
folding frontispiece, a striking feature of many of his books.

198.

William Upton.
The School-Boy; A Poem;
By William Upton. With Coloured
Engravings. London: William
Darton. [Imprint on engraving
"London: William Darton; 58, Holborn Hill;
Sep.1.1820"].

Red wrappers, cover title and imprint on white paper label.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .U71 S369

William Upton.
The School-Girl; A Poem;
By William Upton. With Coloured Engravings.
London: William
Darton. [Imprint on engraving
"London: William Darton, 58, Holborn Hill, 1820"]

Both booklets are made from hand-colored engraved picture sheets. The
poems tell us that intellectual culture of a traditional kind is
taught to boys: Latin, French and Greek classics, and science at the
university. Girls are taught accomplishments: needlework, drawing,
music, dancing, and geography. Middle class girls in the eighteenth
century were educated in feminine behavior, a behavior that by no
means came naturally; early instruction in needlework requiring long
hours of sitting still was one of the instruments for inculcating
it. "Accomplish'd, vers'd in ev'ry rule," the girl retires
"complete from school."

The frontispiece shows the Eddystone Light House as erected by
Smeaton in 1759. Family discussions are joined by the father, who
moves between the counting house and the parlor with ease, and is an
active participant in the children's moral education. The epigraph
is from Cowper: "Domestic happiness, thou only bliss/Of
Paradise, that has survived the fall!"

200.

Stories By A Mother, For The Use Of Her Own
Children. With copper-plate Engravings.
London: Printed
for Darton, Harvey, and Darton, Gracechurch-Street.
1818. [Printed by
Darton, Harvey, and Co.]

Marbled boards, red leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ3 .M91 S88

A conduct book in the form of stories presents "Rosa; Or,
Passion subdued." The imperious Rosa, "more like a picture
I have seen of a fury," becomes "one of the mildest and
most gentle little girls I ever saw. The illustrator, who also
worked for John Harris, portrays "Rosa quite ashamed to see
herself in the glass."

202.

The text for "Dressing Dolls" asks "What can be more
innocent amusement for the tender youth, or what more agreeable to
their future employ?" The text for whipping tops describes it
as a boy's game, although the elder William Darton had written in
the second part of Trifles For Children
that "This is good exercise, and we know no reason why girls
should not use it, in moderation, as well as boys; for, when they
have been working with a needle for some time in cold weather, the
exercise will tend much to promote their health." Whipping tops
was Jane Taylor's favorite amusement, composing all the while.

203.

Mary Mister.
The Adventures Of A Doll. Compiled
With The Hope Of Affording Amusement And Instruction.
By Mary Mister, Author of "Tales from the
Mountains," "Mungo the Little Traveller,"
&c.
London: Printed For Darton, Harvey,
And Darton, Gracechurch-Street. 1816. [Printed by Darton,
Harvey, and Co.]

Lilly Library call number:
PZ6 .M678 A2

Among the most generous representations of contemporary girls, a
whole series of them, of differing status and temperament, appear in
Mary Mister'sThe Adventures Of A Doll.
Vividly portrayed girls visit prisons, learn about Lancasterian
schools, meet parvenue industrialists, and experience the domestic
life of affluent Quakers. The narrative persona of the doll allows
the author to explore the lives of girls from a position not always
mediated by cultural proscriptions. The girl who becomes most
beloved is the most thoroughly un-girl-like of them all, the child
Marianna, who manages to escape the constraints imposed on every
proper girl in children's books of the period and yet to retain the
narrator's affection. Marianna dies of consumption, apparently
exhausted by her high spirits and boundless imagination. Although
the doll seems to age in the end, it is as if the author cannot
imagine a mature woman evolving from a girl like Marianna. The
affecting frontispiece is by James Hopwood the younger.

204.

The Live Doll, Or, Ellen's New-Year's
Gift. By The Authoress Of "The Three
Birthdays," "Baby Tales," &c.
London: William Darton And Son.
Holborn Hill. [ca. 1834].

A reader does not know whether to laugh or cry at this book, which is
full of satirical passages on fads in education and may be conceived
as a satire on the middle class ideal for women, the management of
family life and local philanthropy. A little girl is actually given
a baby, the taking of which is interpreted as philanthropy:

"Ellen," said Mrs. Harrington, "you wish for a
live doll: this good woman is willing to give you her baby, if you
would like to be its mamma: she has lost her husband, and is unable
to provide for it. You are willing, Mrs. Smith, to part with your
little girl to my daughter?"

205.

[William Francis Sullivan].
The History Of More Persons Than One,
Or Entertaining And Instructive Anecdotes For Youth.
With Copper-Plates.
London: William Darton, 58, Holborn
Hill. 1823. Price Eighteen-pence.

The first edition was published under the title The History Of Mr. Rightway And His Pupils
in 1817, the date on the plates. The frontispiece portrays a
benignant bookseller supervising his gift of firewood and provisions
to a starving author, a man; as will be obvious from this
exhibition, if the bookseller published many children's books, his
starving authors were more likely to be women, some of them quite young.

Agnes Strickland is an interesting example of the entry of women into
writing as a profession during the early nineteenth century. Future
author, with her sister Elizabeth, of Lives of
the Queens of England, she had been encouraged to write
in childhood. Her father approved "of educating girls upon the
same plan as boys because he thought it strengthened the female
mind." In the years following his death in 1818, she and her
sister Catherine Parr Strickland Traill wrote dozens of children's
books anonymously, publishing with both the Gracechurch Street and
Holborn Hill firms. In 1856, when Mary Howitt asked Agnes Strickland
to sign the petition granting legal rights in their own property to
married women, Strickland refused, commenting that "the
grievances, though founded in fact," were "irremediable by
human means being part and parcel of the penalties entailed by Eve's transgression."

Samuel Darton Retires at Gracechurch Street

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Jane Taylor, "The Star," Rhymes For
The Nursery

In 1837, the young Victoria came to the throne. "My Mother," that
classic proto-Victorian poem, was now being printed without attribution in
nursery rhyme books; "The Star" had established itself in the
language. Original Poems, For Infant Minds had gone through thirty editions,
and a major revision had been marketed. Samuel Darton retired from his long
career with the firm in 1838. His son, Thomas Gates, departed in 1841;
Joseph Harvey's son Robert was then working alone. The Gracechurch Street
business closed in 1846.

207.

Jefferys Taylor.
A Month in London; Or, Some Of Its
Modern Wonders Described. By Jefferys
Taylor, Author Of "The Little Historians," "Esop
In Rhyme," "The Forest," &c.
London: Harvey And Darton,
Gracechurch Street. 1832.
[Joseph Rickerby, Printer, Sherbourn Lane].

Dark green watered cloth, red leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
DA678 .T64

This fictional tour of London was written by the youngest sibling of
Ann and Jane Taylor, who wrote a number of children's books,
including another with a Darton imprint. The opening of New London
Bridge, August 1, 1831, is portrayed in the handsome steel-engraved
plate drawn by Henry Melville. The narrator describes the
introduction of lithographic drawing and printing.

207b.

[Ann Taylor Gilbert] and
[Adelaide O'Keeffe] and
[Jane Taylor].
Original Poems, For Infant
Minds. By Several Young Persons. Vol. I.
A New and Revised Edition.
London: Printed For Darton And
Harvey, Gracechurch Street. MDCCCXXXVII. [Joseph
Rickerby, Printer, Sherbourn Lane].

Marbled boards, green leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .T243 O69 1836

Adelaide O'Keeffe's poem "Idle Dicky and the Goat" was the
subject of the frontispiece for the "new and revised
edition" of Original Poems,
although the poem itself appears in a much mutilated form. The
revisers, Ann Taylor Gilbert and others, may have been surprised to
see an O'Keeffe

poem featured; it was their
contention that O'Keeffe's poems made up no essential part of the
volumes. She had a right to withdraw her poems, the Rev. Mr.
Gilbert, Ann's husband, had written to her; many of her poems had
been "removed from the volumes and the vacancies
supplied," the Rev. Isaac Taylor wrote. In fact, readers of
Original Poems liked their books
whole; there were very few selected editions in England, and even in
this genteel revision, Original Poems
continued to delight, and to help shape the attitudes of,
generations of Victorian children.

208.

[Ann Taylor Gilbert] and
[Adelaide O'Keeffe] and
[Jane Taylor].
Original Poems, For Infant
Minds. By Several Young Persons. Vol. II.
A New and revised Edition. London:
Virtue & Co., 26, Ivy Lane, Paternoster
Row. 1868.
[Printed By Virtue And Co., City Road, London.]

Green embossed cloth decorated in gold and blind.

Lilly Library call number:
PZ8.3 .T243 O69 1868

The delightful cloth cover of an 1868 edition is embossed with the
figure of a girl reading a book. Writing in The
Athenaeum in 1874, Arthur Hall, of Arthur Hall, Virtue
& Co., which had published a new edition in 1854, argued
that the book's success "may be due to its composite
authorship, for, by happy accident, it combines the varied elements
of moral, didactic, domestic, sentimental, humorous and pathetic attractions."

209.

[Ann Taylor Gilbert] and
[Jane Taylor].
Rhymes For The Nursery.
By The Authors of "Original Poems."
A New Edition, Revised.
London: Printed For Darton And
Harvey, Gracechurch-Street. 1837. [J. Rickerby, Printer, Sherbourn-Lane].

Marbled boards, green leather spine.

Lilly Library call number:
PR5549 .T2 R4 1837

The authors are still anonymous and the attribution, "By The
Authors of 'Original Poems,"' remains the same. Robert Louis
Stevenson's "The Cow," in A Child's Garden of Verses,
1885, is a gentle descendant of the Taylors' poem.

"The Star" achieved nursery rhyme status. Children grow up
reciting it today who have never heard of its author. In her Autobiography, Ann Taylor Gilbert
remembered that her sister said of her method of writing,

I try to conjure some child into my presence, address her
suitably, as well as I am able, and when I begin to flag, I say to
her, "There love, now you may go."

211.

[Jane Darton Home].
A Voyage To India; Or, Three Months
On The Ocean, Showing How Philip Grey Improved And Beguiled His
Time At Sea. By The Author Of
"Charlie's Discoveries."
London:
Harvey And Darton, Gracechurch Street. 1841. [London: Printed By
Samuel Bentley, Bangor House, Shoe Lane.]

Green illustrated cloth, stamped in blind and gilt, edges gilt.

Lilly Library call number:
DS412 .A113 1841

Lawrence Darton has confirmed that Jane Darton Home, the daughter of
Samuel Darton of Gracechurch Street, and granddaughter of the elder
William Darton, wrote anonymously for the Gracechurch Street firm in
its last years, beginning with Charlie's
Discoveries, 1839. The dedication ofA
Voyage To India is dated from Tottenham, where she
appears to have worked as a governess.

William Darton and Son of Holborn Hill

Mary heard about the Reform Bill, and the sufferings of Ireland,
and the Chartists, and Free Trade. And when, at various times, the
leaders of these movements, O'Connell, and Cobden, and others came
to her father's house, they were sure to notice the intelligent
little child who sat and listened with evident interest to all that
was said, and who gazed with admiring eyes on those whom, from the
conversation of her parents and other causes, she had learned to reverence.

Mary Howitt, The Childhood Of Mary Leeson

It was not for me, being a female, though not young, to begin the
conversation with these strangers, neither did the old gentleman
seem much disposed to talk; nevertheless there was no dearth of
discourse, for our two opposite neighbours were, it seems, of the
number of those who are for setting all the world to rights, for
reforming parliaments, changing laws, subverting all establishments,
and in short, for setting the whole earth on fire, in order to
produce salamanders and phoenixes from the flames and ashes.

Mrs. Sherwood, "The Mail Coach," Social Tales For the Young

From 1830 until 1836, William Darton worked in partnership with his son John,
who would head the business at Holborn Hill for another thirty years.
Describing the Holborn Hill firm's publication of Mrs. Sherwood's
"secular" works, M. Nancy Cutt has written that "of all Mrs.
Sherwood's publishers, Darton alone took a genuine and imaginative interest
in illustrations, faithfully investigating each new process as it
appeared." The first known examples of printed color in English
children's books, using George Baxter's wood block printing process, are the
frontispieces to Mrs. Sherwood's booksCaroline
Mordaunt and Social Tales For the Young,
both published in 1835 at Holborn Hill. Shortly after, new editions of some
of Mary Elliott's stories appeared with Baxter plates. In 1836, Mary Howitt
recorded in her Autobiography, that John Darton had come to Nottingham,
taking away for fifty guineas "all those little verses and prose tales
that for years I had written for the juvenile annuals." In the year of
William Darton's retirement, he was publishing the reactionary Mrs. Sherwood
in her Gothic phase, the domestically oriented Mary Elliott, and the
reformist Mary Howitt, who for most of her life thought little of the
depravity of the soul and was an ardent supporter of women's rights. William
Darton of Holborn Hill had been as much of an original as his father.

212.

History Of Joseph And His Brethren.
Twenty-four Coloured Plates.
London: William Darton And Son,
Holborn Hill. [ca. 1835].

Dark green patterned cloth, gilt edges.

Lilly Library call number:
BS580 .J6 H672 1836

[History Of Joseph And His Brethren].
[London: William Darton And Son,
ca. 1835].

Hand-colored engraved cards illustrate the biblical story. The cards
have been combined with text in a miniature book, which is bound in
the same green cloth as the card case.

213.

Mary Belson Elliott.
Tales For Girls. By Mary Elliott. London:
William Darton And Son Holborn Hill.
[ca. 1836] [Printed by Stewart And Co., Old Bailey].

Green patterned cloth, as used on History Of Joseph And His
Brethren, spine stamped in gold.

Lilly Library call number:
PR4699 .E53 T144 1833 (1836?)

The color-printed frontispiece for Tales For
Girls depicts a scene from "Idle Ann; Or, The Dunce
ReClaimed." It is captioned "Baxter's Oil Colour Printing,
3, Charter House Square," and identified as "From a
Painting by J. Browne."

Sketches Of Natural History was first
published in 1834 by Effingham Wilson; William Darton and Son
apparently took the volume over in the same year, and continued to
use the wood engravings by Ebenezer Landells, a follower of Bewick.
The volume contains "The Spider and the Fly," reprinted
from The New Year's Gift, and Juvenile
Souvenir, 1829, which became one of the most popular poems
of the nineteenth century in the United States. It was quoted across
the breadth of American culture from Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl to
Cole Porter'sJubilee. The "Lobster
Quadrille" is Lewis Carroll's parody of it. Added to the volume
is William Howitt's wonderful poem "The Migration of the Grey
Squirrels," which, Iona and Peter Opie have noted, describes a
scene like that portrayed in Squirrel Nutkin.

Born in 1799, Mary Botham Howitt lived a Quaker childhood while the
elder William Darton's publishing business was flourishing. This
fine story, which was one of the volumes in Darton's Holiday
Library, recreates the atmosphere in which she tried to raise her
own children, one wholly different from her own constrained
childhood, dominated by the "incubus" of the war with
France. "Our father restricted himself to reading one weekly
newspaper," she wrote in herAutobiography, "and did not communicate the
contents to us children, and yet from our infancy upwards we were
aware of the terrible war which became year by year more awful and
menacing." In the reminiscences of a character in
The Childhood Of Mary Leeson, Howitt revives
the revolutionary past:

But it was then the time of the French Revolution, when books
were written about liberty and such subjects, and people hoped to
set the world right all at once; and, as there was a deal of
bloodshed and misery in France, the government in England began to
prosecute every body, in this country, who publicly held their
opinions, and to burn the books which advocated them, wherever they
could be found.

During that period, in Lavenham, the Dissenting family of Isaac
Taylor had been threatened by a Church and King mob; at the end of
the decade, the elder William Darton registered his presses, in
accordance with the new Seditious Societies Act.

Mary heard Mr. Felton talk to her father of those times. He said
that on one occasion men came to his house with constables, and
asked whether he had this book and the other, and when he confessed
that he had, they wanted to make him bring them out, and when he
would not they went into his house and seized on them and carried
them off and burnt them in the market-place, where they made great
bonfires of such books.

The Friends' bibliographer Joseph Smith attributes to the elder
William Darton a broadside, printed and posted in the streets,
probably after Howe's victory over the French on the "Glorious
First of June" in 1794. The broadside informed the public that
Quakers could not join in illuminating their houses, being unable to
"rejoice at Victories, purchased with the loss of the Lives of
so many of their Fellow-Creatures."

William Darton and Son first published Shanty The
Blacksmith in 1835. The interesting frontispiece by Marchant
is a stipple engraving on stone. Mrs. Sherwood's Gothic tale of a
mysterious child deposited at a Jewish blacksmith's forge in the
North of England reflects the interest in fictional gypsies and
Jews, influenced, as M. Nancy Cutt has shown, by Scott's Guy Mannering and his creation of the great
characters of Isaac and Rebecca in Ivanhoe.

218.

[Mary Martha Butt] Sherwood.
Social Tales For the Young.
By Mrs. Sherwood.
London: William Darton And Son,
Holborn Hill. [1835]
[Printed By Stewart And Co., Old Bailey].

Wine embossed cloth.

Lilly Library call number:
PR5449 .S4 S678

In the Baxter color-printed frontispiece, which illustrates a scene
from "The Mail Coach," the Welsh harper seems a nostalgic
throwback to the vanished Romantic era, evoking Blake's harper
illustrating Wollstonecraft's Original
Stories. But Mrs. Sherwood's harper is a remnant of the
evangelical tradition, not the Romantic. His dying gift to the
little boy is a copy of Pilgrim's
Progress, "full of old-fashioned pictures,"
inciting a yearning toward religion in the sensation-starved boy,
which is recognized when he is found copying the picture of the
Giant Despair. The boy grows up to undo "all the mischief"
done by the "pragmatical schemes of reform" of his
formerly progressive father. A superbly written and deeply
reactionary story, "The Mail Coach" was first published in
1830 in the Youth's Magazine, which had
formerly been edited by the late Jane Taylor; Mrs. Sherwood was
writing of the time leading up to the Reform Bill of 1832, when many
observers saw England as on the brink of revolution.

Mrs. Sherwood's The Fairchild Family,
1818, probably left its mark on as many children of the nineteenth
century as Original Poems, For Infant
Minds: and, probably, they were the same children. In
"The Mail Coach," Mrs. Sherwood scorns the theoretical
systems for reform in education, labor relations, and religion,
which "may, in experience, be found to work directly in
opposition to the end desired":

[F]or these crude reformers, as I have often remarked, these
favourers of general emancipation from old authorities, almost
universally leave the depravity of human nature out of their
calculations. As if, in computing the progress of a vessel through
any given space of ocean, the calculator should forget to take
account of opposing tides, and baffling winds, and suppose that
deceitful element, the sea, to be always as serene and calm as a bay
to the leeward of one of the Fortunate Islands.

LILLY LIBRARY PUBLICATION L

Beginning with Discovery, exhibition catalogues and other publications from the Lilly Library are numbered consecutively. A list of the unnumbered
publications (most are out of print) and of the numbered series follows:

The Dedication of the Lilly Library, October 3, 1960

A. E. Housman

An Exhibit to Commemorate the One Hundred Fiftieth Anniversary of the Beginning of the War of
1812

Exhibition of Original Printings of Some Milestones of Science from Pliny (1469) to Banting (1922)

Grolier: or ‘Tis Sixty Years Since

The Upton Sinclair Archives

The Bernardo Mendel Collection

Manuscripts, ancient-modern

The J. K. Lilly Collection of Edgar A. Poe

Three Centuries of American Poetry

Report of the Rare Book Librarian, July 1957-June 1958; July 1958-June 1959; July 1959-June 1961;
July 1961-June 1963; July 1963-June 30, 1965; July 1, 1965-June 30, 1967; July 1, 1967-June 30, 1969;
July 1980-June 1981; July 1981-June 1982; July 1982-June 1983; July 1983-June 1984; July 1984-June
1985; July 1985-June 1986; July 1986-June 1987; July 1987-June 1988; July 1988-June 1989; July 1989-
June 1990; July 1990-June 1991

Lilly Library Publication Number I: Discovery

Lilly Library Publication Number II: Medicine

Lilly Library Publication Number III: One Hundred and Fifty Years ... of Indiana Statehood

Lilly Library Publication Number IV: Eighty-Nine Good Novels of the Sea, the Ship, and the Sailor

Lilly Library Publication Number V: The First Twenty-Five Years of Printing, 1455-1480

Lilly Library Publication Number VI: American Patriotic Songs

Lilly Library publication Number VII: An Exhibit of Seventeenth-Century Editions of Writings by John Milton

Lilly Library Publication Number VIII: The Beginnings of Higher Education in Indiana

AN INVITATION TO JOIN THE FRIENDS OF THE LILLY LIBRARY

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books, 6,000,000 manuscripts, and 100,000 pieces of music attract research scholars from around the globe and are available
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As patrons of the Lilly’s cultural and scholarly activities, members of the Friends of the Lilly Library are recipients of
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also receive membership in the Hoosier Book Club of Indiana University Press, which extends a 20 percent discount on all IU
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We hope that you may share an interest in the Lilly Library and express your support through membership in the Friends organization.
Following is a list of membership categories:

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100

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250

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500

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